What Is E-Commerce
Feb 1, 2008
Ecommerce is actually Electronic Commerce which is a method used by people to buy and sell services or products via the internet or other kinds of computer networks. This is a trade that has shown significant growth since the internet’s popularity exploded. Ecommerce involves on a number of functions including electronic funds transfer, internet marketing, electronic data interchange, inventory management systems, supply chain management and even automated data collection systems. Most ecommerce makes use of the World Wide Web at some point in the business dealings and often it will make use of email.
Many people think that ecommerce is the simple act of buying and selling goods over the internet, but there is more to it than that. Some ecommerce is done primarily for “e” items like website building, internet file hosting, graphic design via the internet and other services. It is true, though, that most ecommerce involves the buying and selling of goods. Often people who run an ecommerce business are called e-tailers as a way of illustrating that they are, basically, electronic retailers.
Ecommerce can take on many forms. Most forms of ecommerce involve the selling of goods from a business to an individual though there is a type of ecommerce known as “B2B” or “business to business” which is the act of ecommerce between businesses. B2B is a very competitive field as one business can often do business with thousands of other businesses via the web. Because the transactions are done electronically, the transactions can finalize more quickly, which means that businesses specializing in B2B commerce can do hundreds of transactions in a single day. This makes B2B a very lucrative field for the experienced ecommerce businessperson.
Why specialize in ecommerce instead of opening a traditional “brick and mortar” business? Here are a few reasons to work with ecommerce:
1. The start up costs is lower: starting up your own ecommerce website is often far less expensive than staring up a “traditional business.”
2. Staring an ecommerce business takes less time. You can often start an ecommerce business in as little as a day. This is because there is no travel involved when deciding which goods to stock or who to use as a vendor for your business supplies. You don’t have to spend time on the phone. Everything is done via the internet.
3. Little to no inventory. Thanks to drop shipping, which is how most ecommerce businesses make their money, most ecommerce businesses have little to no actual physical inventory to keep track of. Instead they simply ferry the orders placed with them over to their vendor and keep the profit made from marking up the vendor’s price.
Posted bySite Admin at 1:53 PM
