A Guide to E-Commerce

What is it?

E-Commerce, trade or electricity involves the purchase and sale of products or services over electronic systems. These include Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown massively since the dawn of the Internet, and the increase is expected to continue. To be competitive, it is an absolute must for most companies to be involved with some type of E-commerce.

A large percentage of e-commerce is done entirely electronically for virtual items such as downloading music and books. However, more e-commerce involves the transport of physical objects in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail.

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the past 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce means the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically. Among these, the sending of commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATMs) and telephone banking in 1980 were also forms of electronic commerce.

The most common applications

Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:

Systems of Accounting and Finance
Conferencing Content
Document management systems, spreadsheets, database systems on domestic and international payment
E-mail and enterprise messaging and reporting information as messaging clients
Newsgroup
Order on-line trading and shipping information

The benefits of E-Commerce

Here are some of the many benefits of E-Commerce

Lower transaction costs - whether an e-commerce site is implemented well, the web can significantly reduce costs for recruiting and customer service costs by automating processes.

Other purchases per transaction - Amazon, for example, offers a feature that no normal store offers. When you read the description of a book, you can also see what others who have ordered this book also bought. Features like these mean that it is common for people to buy more books than to purchase a regular library.

Further information about customers - A Web site that is well integrated in the business cycle can offer customers more information than previously available. For example, many companies allow customers to track their orders so they can see exactly where their order at any time.
People can shop in different ways. Traditional mail order companies introduced the concept of shopping from the comfort of your home. e-commerce offers this same luxury, but with some new features. These include -

The ability to build an order more days
The ability to configure products and see actual prices
The ability to easily create complicated custom orders
The ability to compare prices between multiple vendors easily
The ability to search large catalogs easily

Large catalogs - A company can build a catalog on the web that would not fit in a pocket of ordinary letters. For example, Amazon sells millions of books can not realistically be added to any physical catalog.

- Improved customer interactions with automated tools, you can interact with a customer in richer ways at virtually no cost. Many companies send the customer an e-mail when your order is confirmed, when the order is shipped, and after the order arrives. This information is likely to reassure the customer, giving them more confidence in the process. A satisfied customer is reassured and more likely to buy something different from society in the future.

Quick Tips

Here are some quick tips to keep in mind when you think of engaging in electronic commerce

Your prices - a big part of electronic commerce is the fact that price comparisons are extremely easy for the consumer. The price is very important in a transparent market.

Relations with clients - E-commerce offers a variety of different ways of interacting with the customer. E-mail, FAQs, knowledge bases, forums, chat, etc. Integration of these features in your e-commerce offering helps you differentiate from the competition.

Customer satisfaction - this can make or break any retail structure. We must always be ready to help customers manually if there is no automatic option. You may need to periodically refine the processes for the time remaining efficient.

In order to stimulate sales in the long term, you may also consider these other features of e-commerce.

Affiliate Programs - you pay other companies to sell your products. This creates a win-win, as you only pay when the sale is made. This may increase sales of both your company and its profile.

Gifts - need not cost your company nothing. You could for example give away an e-book that cost you nothing but time to write it.

Enticing potential customers (perhaps with gifts) to join a mailing list where you tell us about their latest offerings.

Discounts if they spend over a certain amount.
Periodic or seasonal sales.

Common mistakes in e-commerce

Although there is a rapid growth in the use of e-commerce, not all e-commerce have happened. Here are some common problems.

Some companies just add the cost of hardware, software and hosting services. They forget to consider the total cost of ownership, including training, maintenance and support, updates, marketing and communication, and administration.

Your company can begin to grow quite rapidly. In order to fully exploit this, you need to understand the effect of an increase in sales. It is not good to have more sales if you can not do with it. We do not know how you're going to process and send orders? Want the ability to deal with these sales increased?

It is also necessary to understand the issues surrounding shipping and shipping costs and to identify the geographical locations that are sent from and where we do not. You must have a clear pricing for shipping, or just confuse your customers, which could then go elsewhere.

It 'amazing how many sites make the mistake of using too many complicated graphics or animation, which slow down the speed of the site. People on the Web are typically short attention spans, and you may lose sales if people are waiting for pages to load.

A website should be easy to use and easy to find the information people need. Bare in mind the 'rule of three clicks' in which a person should generally be able to natigate same where they need to be in three clicks.

Web pages must be designed to work with all common Internet browsers, like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc. If not, then you run the risk of isolation from potential customers.

Many companies do not provide a reason for visitors to return to their site. Keep your site fresh and regularly update it with news of your latest offers. Maybe give some free online tools or information.

Make sure your marketing strategy is not overly aggressive and annoying customers who perceive him as 'spam' .......