eCommerce 101
Posted on | February 9, 2009 | 1 Comment
I am often asked what is eCommerce, how do I make money off my website and similar questions. It happens so often that I have decided to write a series of articles about it. If you need more in-depth help I am available to consult on all manner of IT related projects and services.
What is eCommerce?
eCommerce, or Electronic Commerce, is the exchange of goods and services over the Internet. It is one of the most important business process improvements since the invention of the telephone. eCommerce allows people to buy and sell to one another anywhere on the planet at any time of the day or night. eCommerce is the usage of, and exploitation of, the interconnectivity of various business and information systems plus an application that provides a catalog and a shopping cart. We go into more detail on these components in the next few sections. There are few barriers to entry so armed with only a computer and an Internet connection you can start selling almost anything you want.
Why eCommerce?
How would you like a salesperson who could answer all your customers and potential customer’s questions, take their orders, suggest similar items of interest, provide billing and shipping information in real time and do all of this for pennies a day; 24 hours a day? With eCommerce you can have such a sales person. Granted this sales person is a collection of computer software applications designed to work together, communicate together and more importantly automate the buying and selling process. These applications are web-based and as such are available to anyone with a connection to the Internet.
There are low infrastructure and start-up costs as most hosting companies provide a basic eCommerce hosting package for less than $50 per month. PayPal is the most commonly used form of payment on the Internet and costs nothing to get a merchant account. You have a global market that you can sell to and buyers can choose the payment method that suits them best. eCommerce can also help increase sales for your physical store, commonly called a bricks-and-mortar operation, and and eCommerce website open 24-7.
So why eCommerce? Simply put it is the least expensive way to sell goods and services to people anywhere in the world at anytime of the day or night. This is because it automates and simplifies the commodity exchange process. It also provides a sinlge point of entry for clients to find all the relevent information about the products, services they are interested in and all about your company and why to buy from you. So detailed information, ease of transactions and sell to anywhere to anyone at anytime make eCommerce the most affordable business improvement tool since… well, ever.
So is eCommerce right for you? We’ll answer that in Part 2.
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Tags: Business > Communication > Computers > Consultant > E-Commerce > Electronic Commerce > Infrastructure > PayPal > Sales > Services > Shopping cart > Web Design and Development
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February 9th, 2009 @ 5:55 pm
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