E-Commerce – Quick Guide ”; Previous Next E-Commerce Overview E-Commerce or Electronics Commerce is a methodology of modern business, which addresses the need of business organizations, vendors and customers to reduce cost and improve the quality of goods and services while increasing the speed of delivery. Ecommerce refers to the paperless exchange of business information using the following ways − Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Electronic Mail (e-mail) Electronic Bulletin Boards Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) Other Network-based technologies Features E-Commerce provides the following features − Non-Cash Payment − E-Commerce enables the use of credit cards, debit cards, smart cards, electronic fund transfer via bank”s website, and other modes of electronics payment. 24×7 Service availability − E-commerce automates the business of enterprises and the way they provide services to their customers. It is available anytime, anywhere. Advertising / Marketing − E-commerce increases the reach of advertising of products and services of businesses. It helps in better marketing management of products/services. Improved Sales − Using e-commerce, orders for the products can be generated anytime, anywhere without any human intervention. It gives a big boost to existing sales volumes. Support − E-commerce provides various ways to provide pre-sales and post-sales assistance to provide better services to customers. Inventory Management − E-commerce automates inventory management. Reports get generated instantly when required. Product inventory management becomes very efficient and easy to maintain. Communication improvement − E-commerce provides ways for faster, efficient, reliable communication with customers and partners. Traditional Commerce v/s E-Commerce Sr. No. Traditional Commerce E-Commerce 1 Heavy dependency on information exchange from person to person. Information sharing is made easy via electronic communication channels making little dependency on person to person information exchange. 2 Communication/ transaction are done in synchronous way. Manual intervention is required for each communication or transaction. Communication or transaction can be done in asynchronous way. Electronics system automatically handles when to pass communication to required person or do the transactions. 3 It is difficult to establish and maintain standard practices in traditional commerce. A uniform strategy can be easily established and maintain in e-commerce. 4 Communications of business depends upon individual skills. In e-Commerce or Electronic Market, there is no human intervention. 5 Unavailability of a uniform platform as traditional commerce depends heavily on personal communication. E-Commerce website provides user a platform where al l information is available at one place. 6 No uniform platform for information sharing as it depends heavily on personal communication. E-Commerce provides a universal platform to support commercial / business activities across the globe. E-Commerce – Advantages E-Commerce advantages can be broadly classified in three major categories − Advantages to Organizations Advantages to Consumers Advantages to Society Advantages to Organizations Using e-commerce, organizations can expand their market to national and international markets with minimum capital investment. An organization can easily locate more customers, best suppliers, and suitable business partners across the globe. E-commerce helps organizations to reduce the cost to create process, distribute, retrieve and manage the paper based information by digitizing the information. E-commerce improves the brand image of the company. E-commerce helps organization to provide better customer services. E-commerce helps to simplify the business processes and makes them faster and efficient. E-commerce reduces the paper work. E-commerce increases the productivity of organizations. It supports “pull” type supply management. In “pull” type supply management, a business process starts when a request comes from a customer and it uses just-in-time manufacturing way. Advantages to Customers It provides 24×7 support. Customers can enquire about a product or service and place orders anytime, anywhere from any location. E-commerce application provides users with more options and quicker delivery of products. E-commerce application provides users with more options to compare and select the cheaper and better options. A customer can put review comments about a product and can see what others are buying, or see the review comments of other customers before making a final purchase. E-commerce provides options of virtual auctions. It provides readily available information. A customer can see the relevant detailed information within seconds, rather than waiting for days or weeks. E-Commerce increases the competition among organizations and as a result, organizations provides substantial discounts to customers. Advantages to Society Customers need not travel to shop a product, thus less traffic on road and low air pollution. E-commerce helps in reducing the cost of products, so less affluent people can also afford the products. E-commerce has enabled rural areas to access services and products, which are otherwise not available to them. E-commerce helps the government to deliver public services such as healthcare, education, social services at a reduced cost and in an improved manner. E-Commerce – Disadvantages The disadvantages of e-commerce can be broadly classified into two major categories − Technical disadvantages Non-Technical disadvantages Technical Disadvantages There can be lack of system security, reliability or standards owing to poor implementation of e-commerce. The software development industry is still evolving and keeps changing rapidly. In many countries, network bandwidth might cause an issue. Special types of web servers or other software might be required by the vendor, setting the e-commerce environment apart from network servers. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to integrate an e-commerce software or website with existing applications or databases. There could be software/hardware compatibility issues, as some e-commerce software may be incompatible with some operating system or any other component. Non-Technical Disadvantages Initial cost − The cost of creating/building an e-commerce application in-house may be very high. There could be delays in launching an e-Commerce application due to mistakes, and lack of experience. User resistance − Users may not trust the site being an unknown faceless seller. Such mistrust makes it difficult to convince traditional users to switch from physical stores to online/virtual stores. Security/ Privacy − It is difficult to ensure the security or privacy on online transactions. Lack of touch or feel of products during online shopping is a drawback. E-commerce applications are still evolving and changing rapidly. Internet access is still not cheaper and is inconvenient to use for