{"id":257,"date":"2008-12-15T10:17:55","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T16:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.edynamo.com\/?p=257"},"modified":"2009-04-09T10:53:17","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T16:53:17","slug":"e-commerce-advantages-and-disadvantages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"E-commerce advantages and disadvantages"},"content":{"rendered":"

E-commerce provides many new ways for businesses and consumers to communicate and conduct business. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages of conducting business in this way.
\nE-commerce advantages<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some of the advantages that can be reached by e-commerce include:<\/p>\n

* To be able to operate 24 x 7 x 365. E-commerce systems can work all day every day. Your physical storefront can not be opened to allow consumers and suppliers to do business with you electronically.
\n* Access to the world market. Internet covers the world, and it is possible to do business with any company or person linked to the Internet. Simple local business as a specialist record stores are able to market and sell their offerings internationally using electronic commerce. This global opportunity is supported by the fact that, unlike traditional methods of communication, users are charged depending on the distance over which they are communicating.
\n* Speed. Electronic communications allow messages to traverse the world almost immediately. No need to wait weeks for a catalog to arrive by mail, communication delay is not part of the Internet \/ E-commerce world.
\n* Marketspace. The market in which the web-based business is the world market. It may not be obvious to them, but many companies are already facing competition from international web maintenance business.
\n* Option to reduce costs. Internet makes it very easy to shop around for products and services that may be cheaper or more effective than might otherwise allow for. It is sometimes possible, by some online research, identify the original producer of certain goods – thereby bypassing wholesalers and finding a cheaper price.
\n* Computer platform-independent. Many if not most, computers have the ability to communicate via the Internet regardless of operating system and hardware. Customers are not limited by existing hardware systems “(Gascoyne & Ozcubukcu, 1997:87).
\n* Effective application development environment – “In many ways, the applications can be more effectively developed and distributed, as can be built without regard to the client or business partner of the technology platform. Application updates do not have to manually install the computer . On the Internet related technologies to provide this capability by automatically uncaused deployment of software updates “(Gascoyne & Ozcubukcu, 1997:87).
\n* Allowing customers to self service and customer outsourcing. People can interact with the companies at any time of day it is convenient for them, since these interactions are initiated by customers, users also many data transactions that may otherwise have to be entered by business staff. This means that some of the cost of labor and effectively transferred to the customers, it is further “outsourcing customer.
\n* Strengthening beyond a global goal. Using aspects of electronic commerce technology can mean that business can source and use of products and services provided by other companies in other countries. This seems obvious enough to say, but people do not always consider the implications of electronic commerce. For example, in many ways it may be easier and cheaper to host and operate about e-commerce activities outside California. Furthermore, since many e-commerce transactions involve credit cards, many companies in California should be made for accepting online payments. However, a number of major California banks tend to be laggards unhelpful on this front, charging a lot of money and it is difficult to establish these measures – especially the small and \/ or businesses that do not fit into traditional economic understanding of business . In some cases, so it may be easier and cheaper to create conditions that bypass this aspect of the California banking system. Of course, this may create some gray areas for legal and tax purposes, but they can be processed. These circumstances have implications for the California national competitiveness and the competitiveness of industry and business.<\/p>\n

A further, many companies are more easily bought and sold in U.S. dollars: it is effectively the main currency of the Internet. In this context, the global online customers may find the concept of special and unfamiliar currencies disconcerting. Some companies may find the achievement of higher prices, online and in U.S. dollars than they would achieve sales of local or national level. Given that banks often charge a fee for converting currencies, this is one more reason to investigate all your (national and international) opportunities for adoption and online payments.<\/p>\n

In short, it is useful to take a global order in view of the potential and the organization of your e-commerce activity, especially if you are targeting global customers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

* A new marketing channel. Internet offers important new channels for sale to consumers. Peterson and others. (1999) suggest that as a marketing channel, the Internet has the following characteristics:
\n* Ability to inexpensively store vast amounts of information on different virtual places
\n* Availability of cheap and powerful tools for searching, organizing, and disseminating such information
\n* Interactivity and the ability to provide information on request
\n* The ability to provide perceptual experiences that are far superior to a printed catalog, although not as rich as a personal inspection
\n* Ability to serve as a transaction medium
\n* Ability to serve as the physical environment for the distribution of certain goods (eg software)
\n* Relatively low cost of entry and sellers
\n* There is no other existing marketing channel has all these characteristics.<\/p>\n

Some of these advantages and the surrounding issues are discussed below in further detail.
\nE-commerce disadvantages and constraints<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some of the disadvantages and limitations of electronic commerce include the following.<\/p>\n

* Time for delivery of physical products. You may visit your local music store and walk out with a compact disc or a bookstore and leave with the book. E-commerce is often used to buy goods not available to local businesses from all over the world, meaning that physical goods must be delivered, which takes time and costs money. In some cases there are ways around that, for example, electronic files of music or books are available through the Internet, but they are not physical goods.
\n* Physical product, supplier & supply uncertainty. When you leave the store with the item, it is yours. You got it, you know what, when and how it looks. In some aspects of e-commerce purchases are made on the trust. This is because, first, there was no physical access to the product purchase is made in anticipation of what the product and its condition. Secondly, because the supply business may be conducted throughout the world, it may be uncertain whether or not they are a legitimate business and not just take the money. This is very difficult to knock on the door to complain or to seek their rights through the courts! Third, even if the product is sent, it’s easy to start wondering whether it would not arrive.
\n* Perishable goods. Forget about ordering a gelato ice cream from a shop in California! Although specialized or chilled transport can be used, the goods are bought and sold on the Internet tend to be durable and non-perishable: they must survive the trip by purchasing a business or user. This shift in bias for perishable and \/ or non-durable goods back to the traditional mode of supply chain, or relatively more local e-commerce-based purchasing, sales and distribution. In contrast, durable goods can be traded almost anyone to almost anyone else, sparking competition for lower prices. In some cases this leads to disintermediation, in which people and intermediary companies are bypassed by consumers and other companies who are looking to buy more directly from producers.
\n* Limited and selected sensory information. Internet is effective in water for visual and auditory information: as pictures, sounds and hearing reading text. However, it does not allow full range of our senses: we can see pictures of flowers, but not smell their scent, we can see pictures of hammer, but not feel its weight or balance. Furthermore, when adopting and verify something we choose what to see and how to look at it. This is not the case on the Internet. If you are looking for buying a car online, you’ll see photos of the seller were chosen for us to see, but not for things that you seek, if we were able to see it in person. And, taking into account our other senses, we can not test the car to hear the sound of the engine as it changes gears or sense of smell and feel of the leather seats. There are many ways in which the Internet does not show the wealth of experience in the world. This lack of sensory information means that people are often much more comfortable buying via the Internet generic goods – things that they have seen or experienced before and for which there is little ambiguity, rather than unique or complex things.
\n* Claim goods. Returning goods online may be an area of difficulty. Uncertainty about the initial payment and delivery of goods may exacerbate this process. Goods will be returned to its source? Who pays for return postage? Refund will be paid? Will be left with nothing? How long will it take? Contrast this with the offline experience of returning goods to a shop.
\n* Privacy, security, payment, identity, agreement. Many questions arise – Security information Security information and payment, whether or not for payment (eg credit card) will not be misused, identity theft, contract and whether or not we have one, what laws and legal jurisdiction, apply.
\n* Certain services & unexpected. E-commerce is an effective way to manage the transaction known and established offices, ie, things that are every day. It is not suitable for dealing with new or unexpected. For example, a transport company used to deal with packages are usually asked if they could transport a hippopotamus or a customer asking for a book to be wrapped in blue and white polka dot paper bow. These requests must be investigated and solved human intervention.
\n* Personal service. Although some interactions may be facilitated by the Internet, e-commerce may not provide the richness of interaction provided by personal service. For most businesses, e-commerce methods provide equivalent information on Counter-rich companion, and not as a seller. This also means that the feedback on how people respond to products and services also tend to be more granular, or perhaps lost using e-commerce approaches. If the only feedback is that people are (or not) buy your products or services online, this is not sufficient to evaluate how to change or improve your e-commerce strategies and \/ or products and services. Successful business use of e-commerce strategies typically involve the receipt and application of customer feedback. This helps enterprises to understand and prevent and respond to changing customer needs and preferences online, which is crucial, because relatively rapid rate of current Internet-based change.
\n* The size and number of transactions. E-commerce is most often made with credit card facilities for payments, and consequently very small and very large transactions tend to be made online. The amount of transactions also affect the economics of transporting physical goods. For example, all the benefits and convenience of purchasing a box of pens online US-based businesses tend to be eclipsed by the cost of having to pay for them to be delivered to you in California. Delivery costs also means that the purchase of individual items from a number of other overseas business is significantly more expensive than buying all goods from an overseas business, as goods can be packed and shipped together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E-commerce provides many new ways for businesses and consumers to communicate and conduct business. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages of conducting business in this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edynamo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}