The level of demand for Web
sites with order processing, payment processing or other forms
of e-commerce functionality has reached great heights.
From florist and green grocers to multinationals and
government departments – it’s hard to imagine any business or
organization that will not benefit from using e-commerce in
one form or another.
What is Ecommerce? - Ecommerce
follows the same basic principles as traditional commerce.
Benefits - Why sell your products online? Are
forecast growth rates of 300% or 400% over the next few years
good enough reasons to start thinking about e-commerce?
Convenience - It's really all about
convenience. Consumers find the Internet to be a terrific way
to efficiently expend their shopping and banking efforts.
Travelers find the Internet to be an efficient way to book
hotels rooms and airplane seats. Corporate procurement
managers find the Internet to be the most efficient way to
purchase needed goods and inventory. Hundreds of millions of
people worldwide find e-mail to be the most efficient way to
communicate.
Ecommerce offers buyers maximum convenience. They can visit
the web sites of multiple vendors round the clock a day to
compare prices and make purchases, without having to leave
their homes or offices from around the globe. In some cases,
consumers can immediately obtain a product or service, such as
an electronic book, a music file, or computer software, by
downloading it over the Internet.
Vendor companies save costs - For sellers,
e-commerce offers a way to cut costs and expand their markets.
They do not need to build, staff, or maintain a physical store
or print and distribute mail order catalogs. Automated order
tracking and billing systems cut additional labor costs, and
if the product or service can be downloaded then e-commerce
firms have no distribution costs involved.
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Because the products can be
sold sell over the global Internet, sellers have the potential
to market their products or services globally and are not
limited by the physical location of a store.
Internet technologies also permit sellers to track the
interests and preferences of their customers with the
customer’s permission and then use this information to build
an ongoing relationship with the customer by customizing
products and services to meet the customer’s needs.
Technology Convergence - The Internet is
about saving time, and therefore saving money, and the
potential of the Internet has barely been tapped. New methods
of taking advantage of efficiencies will become widely
accepted as access to high-speed broadband Internet
connections become commonplace.
For users of the Internet (both business and consumer), the
best is yet to come, and many companies will earn terrific
profits in the process of serving those users. The number of
American homes with broadband access capabilities will soon
top 150 million, and a plethora of new services, entertainment
options and time-saving solutions will become widely available
for the first time. The long awaited phenomenon of
"convergence" of entertainment, computing and communications
will finally arrive.
The next decade should be extremely exciting, both for
consumers and for firms that provide Internet-based services.
Ecommerce for your business -
Your business has to move fast to compete in this vast new
global electronic marketplace called e-business. Much more
than just a 'click to buy' dot-com e-commerce solution for
consumers, e-business is much wider in reach and scope,
providing compelling solutions for business-to-business
matters, training and employee development and maintaining
customer relationships. This is a world of business that
rewards an unprecedented level of responsiveness to clients
and that expects nothing less than the deployment of superior
technology to serve clients' needs.
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