E-COMMERCE PROS AND CONS

One thing that you’ll discover after working in e-commerce is that there are pluses and minuses to doing business on the Web. The second discovery you will make is that there are e-commerce professionals and hopefully you will be a certified one soon and there are e-commerce con artists.

It can be said that the advantage (Pros) to doing business on the Web are a result of the hard work of e-commerce professionals. Most of the disadvantages and hazards to doing business on the web are caused and amplified by the people we are referring to as the e-commerce con artists.

PROS ADVANTAGES OF E-COMMERCE

E-commerce trends and technologies are constantly changing. Staying up to speed on the latest e-commerce standards and techniques is a constant learning experience for e-commerce professionals. For those who are willing to do the work, the web can offer the following benefits over traditional commerce.

v  INSTANT WORLDWIDE AVAILABILITY. An e-commerce web site is available globally, constantly. Only the largest businesses are able to achieve this with traditional commerce.

v  EASIER ENTRY INTO NEW MARKETS. You don’t need to physically bring your company and therefore your products into new parts of the world. As more and more people join the web community they will bring your product to themselves by visiting your web site.

v  DIRECT INTERACTION BETWEEN BUYER AND SELLER. There’s no need to contract a middlemen or find a reseller to get your goods to your buyers. Buyers can access your business directly through your web site.

v  REDUCED OVERHEAD. Opening a store in a new area can be a risky venture. This risk is minimized in an e-commerce business model, where overhead is limited to the web site and fulfillment staff and geographical coverage in a brick-and-mortar sense is not an issue.

v  REDUCED PAPERWORK. Because transactions are conducted completely electronically there is little or no need for paper.

v  NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES. As a new media for commerce and with its low start-up costs, e-commerce on the internet has the potential to inspire many innovative business models.

v  IMPROVED MARKET ANALYSIS. The community of internet users can be surveyed to determine the probable success of a potential new product.

v  IMPROVED PRODUCT ANALYSIS. The internet can be used to locate extensive information about nearly any product or class of product. Sellers and buyers on the internet have the ability to be much better informed than they are in traditional commerce.

v  AVAILABILITY OF VAST STORES OF KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERT (AS WELL AS NOT-SO-EXPERT) ADVICE. Many e-commerce sites offer reviews of products, sometimes from experts and sometimes from users often both.

CONS

E-commerce Con artists on the other hand approach commerce on the web with a gold rush mentality. Rather than taking the time to research the unique culture, concerns and rules of the internet, these get-rich-quick believers rush in assuming that internet business is the same as traditional business, only faster and with millions of dollars to be made overnight.

As an e-commerce professional, it’s your responsibility to make sure that web sites that you create are as secure as they can be and that you (and as a result your business) are a responsible internet citizen. Online businesses have to work hard to earn the trust of customers so they can gain useful information about how to better serve them. The following section explores these important e-commerce concerns and issues in more detail.