Articles

What is eCommerce

Posted 4/01/2008

E-commerce, (electronic commerce), is online commerce verses real-world commerce. E-commerce includes retail shopping, banking, stocks and bonds trading, auctions, real estate transactions, airline booking, movie rentals—nearly anything you can imagine in the real world. Even personal services such as hair and nail salons can benefit from e-commerce by providing a website for the sale of related health and beauty products, normally available to local customers exclusively.

While e-commerce once required an expensive interface and personal security certificate, this is no longer the case. Virtual storefronts are offered by a variety of hosting services and large Internet presences such as eBay and Yahoo!, which offer turnkey solutions to vendors with little or no online experience. Tools for running successful e-commerce websites are built into the hosting servers, eliminating the need for the individual merchant to redesign the wheel. These tools include benefits like shopping carts, inventory and sales logs, and the ability to accept a variety of payment options including secure credit card transactions.

Ecommerce allows consumers to electronically exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance. Electronic commerce has expanded rapidly over the past five years and is predicted to continue at this rate, or even accelerate. In the near future the boundaries between "conventional" and "electronic" commerce will become increasingly blurred as more and more businesses move sections of their operations onto the Internet.

Business to Business or B2B refers to electronic commerce between businesses rather than between a business and a consumer. B2B businesses often deal with hundreds or even thousands of other businesses, either as customers or suppliers. Carrying out these transactions electronically provides vast competitive advantages over traditional methods. When implemented properly, ecommerce is often faster, cheaper and more convenient than the traditional methods of bartering goods and services.

Electronic transactions have been around for quite some time in the form of Electronic Data Interchange or EDI. EDI requires each supplier and customer to set up a dedicated data link (between them), where e-commerce provides a cost-effective method for companies to set up multiple, ad-hoc links. Electronic commerce has also led to the development of electronic marketplaces where suppliers and potential customers are brought together to conduct mutually beneficial trade.

The road to creating a successful online store can be a difficult if unaware of e-commerce principles and what ecommerce is supposed to do for your online business. Researching and understanding the guidelines required to properly implement an e-business plan is a crucial part to becoming successful with online store building.

One of the major reasons why so many businesses are taking their services online is because once they have established an ecommerce website they are affectively opening their business up to the global market, meaning that anyone in the world with internet access is a potential customer. Therefore the potential for your business is unlimited.

Another reason why ecommerce is becoming so popular is because ecommerce allows you to trade 24/7 and 365 days a year as long as your website and web server is maintained correctly. As web servers try to be online 24/7 and the ecommerce website being able to process transactions without somebody sitting there day in, day out, this allows for people to shop even when the normal shops would be closed.

When starting up a business online or transferring your existing business to the world of ecommerce you are affectively about to make your business run a lot smoother if you use the right ecommerce software. With the right content management system and the right ecommerce system you can manage everything from your computer. You will be able to track what customers are buying, store inventory control, change shipping and all other kinds of tasks easily from a computer which will leave you more time to work on other aspects of your business. Also using an ecommerce website you can show off all of your products along with detailed descriptions and specifications all in one place, and as they are there you will easily be able to up date the product information thus keeping your customers completely up to date with what you are offering.

Features that can help improve your business like product comparison is always a good choice when starting your ecommerce business, this allows for your customers to compare different products against each other so that they can then decide for themselves which they want after viewing facts on each of the products or services they wish to compare, this allows for the customer to have more control and know exactly what they want to buy.

A major bonus to using ecommerce over general commerce is that when a customer purchases a product the ecommerce side automates all of the process which cuts down on errors, codes are sent when ordering automatically which reduces the risk for human error. So you should also cut down on costs due to the accuracy of an ecommerce websites automation process.

Overall anyone with an idea can start up an ecommerce business and compete with the big stores at little cost nowadays, one you have established your website you are competing against the superstores which can be good for you as a lot of people would rather go to a smaller business online to buy their products. A few reasons for this is that you can have much more personal interaction with the customer than a big ecommerce company will have. Once you have established yourself you can just as quickly become a big store, but do not leave your customers in the dark, you need to keep your support up to scratch no matter how big you may get.