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E-Commerce (Electronic Commerce) in a nutshell is Commerce
that is conducted electronically. It mainly consists of buying and
selling goods or services over the Internet. It is critical today
for large and small businesses to have a web presence in order to
increase it's marketability and to also put a "Face" on the business
entity. A web-site is in fact an electronic store front.
The appearance of this 'electronic store front' will either attract
customers or deter customers. For this reason it is also important
that your Online Store Front (Web-Site) be user friendly, up to date,
easy to navigate and appealing to the customer.
The Web today is very accommodating to all types of businesses seeking a web presence. If you are a novice to the design and implementation process of building a web-site or are a start-up business who just does not have the time to create a site; then using a 3rd party designer and host is easy, it is user friendly and it is cost effective. Utilizing an E-Commerce site will lower transaction costs (customer service/order-tracking), services larger purchases per transaction (consumers see more items related to what they are purchasing with the what other people are ordering) and generates a larger purchasing window because the store will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I generally tell people that there are three
options they have. These 3 options are Enterprise Computing,
Virtual Hosting and Simplified E-Commerce.
Enterprise Computing is when a business hires a staff of web
developers to create the site and purchase hardware/software for them
that is necessary to host the site. This solution is mainly for
the already established companies that have high traffic (millions of
customers/month). Dell and Amazon are examples.
Virtual Hosting is when a business hires a 3rd party vendor
which maintains equipment/software at their site and sells them in
packages. Most Virtual Hosting packages include merchant accounts,
databases and security. The business provides the Web Designers
the freedom to create and maintain the web-site. Some Virtual
Hosting Vendors allow for the business owner to remotely connect into
the Web Server to maintain content. Simplified E-Commerce
is what I usually recommend for a Small Business approach. The
vendor provides a simplistic way, usually with pre-built web page
templates, for the business owner to create the Online Store Front.
The vendor's software also creates an easy interface for the business
owner to login and make necessary changes in order to keep the web-site
up to date and ready for service. Examples of these are
Yahoo Stores,
Verio Stores and
Ebay Stores (usually a monthly fee of
under $20.00). It is a good idea to research the market before
getting started not only to familiarize yourself but to also price the
market. Please refer to the links to the left as a Quick Start
Guide to doing business online. |
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