E-Commerce

Definition:

E-Commerce (Electronic Commerce) is a term used as a electronic medium to carry out commercial transactions. It is used Most of the time to sale products through Internet where people can buy something sitting at home.

It is easy for buying and selling of products and services by businesses and customers through an electronic medium, without using paper documents. It is considered for buying and selling of products over the internet.

Ecommerce and its Applications:

If I talk about its applications, eCommerce is a subset of the e-business that concerns commerce.

Its activity for selling of goods and services with some of the other kind of payment methods can be intended as commerce.

eCommerce world is an application of information sharing among business trading basically online commercial transaction with clients.

Now eCommerce modules or plugins are included in all type’s development of CMS like WordPress. E-commerce is divided into six major types they are:

• Business-to-Business
• Business-to-Consumer
• Business-to-Administration
• Consumer-to-Consumer
• Consumer-to-Business
• Consumer-to-Administration

In which areas E-Commerce can be used:

E-commerce is getting explored various business areas such as retail and wholesale and manufacturing. The most common E-commerce applications are as follows:

• Online marketing and purchasing
• Retail and wholesale
• Finance
• Manufacturing
• Online Auction
• E-Banking
• Online publishing
• Online booking (ticket, seat. etc.)

• Online marketing and Purchasing:

In Online marketing the business model used to be a pretty universal term. It uses some same skeleton applied for many businesses, and it involved a consumer becoming aware of a product (billboard, printing ad, yellow pages, etc.), speaking with the seller, thinking their purchase over for days (or weeks) after getting some quote, and (hopefully) an eventual purchase. In this process could drag on for decreasing the likelihood of a sale with each and every passing step of the linear path.

In eCommerce purchasing for both businesses and consumers, that changed as technology and digital practices evolved, streamlining every step of user behaviour and the business model. Now, if someone needs something, they can go online, find exactly what they’re looking for, and have it in just one day. When people get curious about a product or service, he or she can research online, read reviews from other buyers, and watch product demos before making a purchase.

In this accessibility something has changed the business model from its traditional linear path into a regularly moving target with search and digital marketing at the center.

When consumers go to know about buying has in some ways been simplified by electronic marketing (i.e., fewer steps, purchasing power by one click of a button), the ways they interact with and reach businesses has multiplied. Thus, competition is got increased significantly among businesses, there has never been more opportunity for growth and success.

                                                                                    Ref: bcomitnotes.wordpress

• Retail and wholesale:

In eCommerce Wholesale means selling in bulk quantities and retail stands for selling merchandise in small quantities. These Wholesale and Retail both are two distribution arrangement that constitutes a major part of the supply chain.

For some of those good manufacturing commercials, they are sold in large quantities (wholesale) to the wholesalers who further sells them to the retailers who finally sells them to the ultimate customers. When wholesaler sells goods to the businesses, as they purchase goods to sell it further. If I talk about retail, a retailer targets final consumer and sells goods to them.

In eCommerce, E-retailing or on-line retailing is selling of goods with quality from Business-to-Consumer through electronic stores that are designed using the electronic catalog and shopping cart model. A single popular Website, Cybermall, that offers different products and services at one Internet location. This retail involves the customer and the seller into one virtual space through a Web browser.

• Finance:

Finance is to do a lot of the work from a diligence perspective is with those an entrepreneur has worked with in the past. Not just the people that they worked for, but also the people that they might have been the boss of as well as their peers.

We spend a lot of time getting to know those relationships. When someone want to make a personal trust beyond the entrepreneurs pitching us and telling the story of their business – how they act in public, what kind of employee they are, etc.

Here have some people in different situations than that you would get with the typical business development or investor pitch scenario. This is a long-term relationship where you have to have trust. If someone has a concern about a business-related opportunity, let’s figure out some way to potentially solve it or work around it versus trying to convey that it doesn’t exist at all.

The experienced people in business and investments have a pretty good understanding of who those people are and through your own interactions as well as others’ interactions, they can get a pretty good picture of someone’s trustworthiness.

Using eCommerce Financial companies are going to a large extent. From which customers can check the balances of their savings and loan accounts, transfer money to their other account and pay their bill through on-line banking or E-banking. Another application of E-commerce is on-line stock trading. There have a lot of Websites provide access to news, charts, information about company profile and analyst rating on the stocks.

• Manufacturing:

In eCommerce customers want an over-the-top, no-holds-barred experience in e-commerce. Manufacturers must consider how an omnichannel experience impacts e-commerce. An omnichannel solution focuses on connecting an online and a brick and mortar establishment into a single, unified solution.

Let us give an example, Walmart allows customers to purchase products online, which may be directly from the manufacturer in some cases, pick up these products in the store, or even return them if a problem arises. Walmart probably represents one of the most effective omnichannel solutions in e-commerce in the world.

Business to business e-commerce spending will exceed $1 trillion dollars by 2020, elucidate. An omnichannel solution is practically impossible without e-commerce, and conversely, e-commerce for manufacturing is difficult to manage without an omnichannel solution. Customers want to be able to have options and maintain accountability with the manufacturer at practically any stage in the shipping and order process.

Ultimately, an omnichannel approach allows a business to gain additional trust from the consumer, which results in increased revenue, better customer satisfaction ratings, reduced costs, fewer mistakes, better productivity for employees, and less rework. Obviously, omnichannel solutions will naturally lead to reduction in the number of employees in sales positions. However, this means more heads will be available to work on boosting production, which results in subsequent positive experiences for all involved parties.

For manufacturing eCommerce companies is changing how businesses do business with other businesses. The idea of always selling the traditional way of manufacturing to retail only is dying, and businesses need to embrace the idea of working in a multi- channel, to include electronic commerce, in order to achieve a positive growth and return on investment. Consumers are growing more powerful through social media and the Internet, and manufacturers must be ready and willing to adapt to their demands in 2016. Failure to do so would be a futile effort in a world where a dead smartphone is tantamount to a wasted day.

• Online Auction:

In eCommerce online auctions, buying and selling articles including their advertisements through social network sites, business-to-business exchanges, and other forms of electronic trading are slowly becoming the marketing options for new age firms.

As the penetration of Internet is making inroads to every household as well as business house, online marketing becomes inevitable for millions of businesses worldwide.

As the trend continues, more and more buyers have started using them. In India for coal, for example, will buy about $55 billion worth of goods and services in 2008.

The company plans to make almost one-third of these purchases through online marketplaces. The trend is catching up as firms from different domains have started online marketing and in future a significant percentage of their day-to-day customer interactions will occur through online marketplaces over the next 2–3 years.

• E-banking:

E-banking (Electronic banking) can be defined with many names like e-banking, virtual banking, online banking, internet banking. It can be used for electronic and telecommunications network for delivering various banking products and services.

Through e-banking, a customer can access his account and conduct many transactions using his computer or mobile phone. Since 1997, when the ICICI Bank (India) first offered internet banking services, today, most new-generation banks offer the same to their customers. Now a days all major banks have started to provide e-banking services to their customers.

 Services under e-banking in India

1.ATMs (Automated Teller Machines), 2. Telephone Banking, 3. Electronic Clearing Cards, 4. Smart Cards, 5.EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) System, 6.ECS (Electronic Clearing Services), 7. Mobile Banking, 8. Internet Banking, 9. Telebanking, 10. Door-step Banking

• Online Publishing:

Online publishing transforms your printed documents into digital publications in one easy step using TPH online publishing. It can make a catalogue, brochure, book or other printed collateral, our online publishing services will help you reach your customers in a whole new way. Add interactive features such as audio and video to capture attention and deliver your message.

• Online booking:

In eCommerce online booking system is software which allows a potential customer to book and pay for an activity or service directly through your website. Customer decides they want to book to choosing a date, picking a time and paying for the booking, everything is handled online, greatly reducing the load of work on your staff and removing the opportunity for double-bookings.

There have so many advanced systems for customers to book through a variety of methods online, including mobile, greatly expanding the potential for bookings for your business, and better leveraging an increasingly social internet.

Invention for fastest internet connection and powerful online tools has resulted in a new commerce arena – Ecommerce. That online booking offered many advantages to companies and customers but it also caused many problems.

Advantages of Ecommerce:

1. Faster buying and selling procedure, as well as easy to find products.
2. Buying and selling 24/7.
3. Reaching to customers, there is no theoretical geographic limitations.
4. Low operational costs and better quality of services.
5. No need of physical company set-ups.
6. Easy to start and manage a business.
7. People can easily select products from different providers without moving around physically.

Disadvantages of Ecommerce:

1. Everyone can easily start a business. And there are many bad sites which eat customers’ money.
2. There is no guarantee of product quality.
3. Mechanical failures can cause unpredictable effects on the total processes.
4. It can be minimum chance of direct customer to company interactions, customer loyalty is always on a check.
5. There are many hackers who look for opportunities, and thus an ecommerce site, service, payment gateways, all are always prone to attack.

Future scope of E-Commerce

In our concern now a days the Internet has become the lifeline of any business. If I simply explain the definition of business – Any activity or transaction which involves the exchange of goods and services with an objective of earning an income by making a profit. When the transaction is executed over the internet it is called E-commerce.

The current trends show that the use of the Internet, smart phones and the confidence of the people in using their credit cards online is growing exponentially. Hence, ecommerce is here to stay, and we have to adapt ourselves to become smarter online buyers and sellers and web entrepreneurs – because all the basic principles of the real-world business apply to ecommerce also.

The e-commerce spending and online buyers and penetration of e-commerce will surely grow but the growth will vary from country to country and affect the online market at various time slots, but eventually when all the continent markets mature, the global market will shrink the geographic boundaries further – giving rise to further impetus for a favourable online scenario.