E-Commerce

Introduction :

Electronic commerce or e-commerce consists of the buying, selling, marketing,and servicing of products or services over computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions.

An alternative definition of e-commerce might view it as the conduct of business commercial communications and management through electronic methods, such as electronic data interchange and automated data-collection systems.

Historical development

The meaning of the term "electronic commerce" has changed over time. Originally, "electronic commerce" meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, usually using technology like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI, introduced in the late 1970s) to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically.

Later it came to include activities more precisely termed "Web commerce" -- the purchase of goods and services over the World Wide Web via secure servers (note HTTPS, a special server protocol which encrypts confidential ordering data for customer protection) with e-shopping carts and with electronic pay services, like credit card payment authorizations.

Key success factors in e-commerce

1. Providing value to customers. Vendors can achieve this by offering a product or product-line that attracts potential customers at a competitive price, as in non-electronic commerce.

2. Providing service and performance. Offering a responsive, user-friendly purchasing experience, just like a flesh-and-blood retailer, may go some way to achieving these goals.

3. Providing an attractive website. The tasteful use of colour, graphics, animation, photographs, fonts, and white-space percentage may aid success in this respect.

4. Providing an incentive for customers to buy and to return. Sales promotions to this end can involve coupons, special offers, and discounts. Cross-linked websites and advertising affiliate programs can also help.

5. Providing personal attention. Personalized web sites, purchase suggestions, and personalized special offers may go some of the way to substituting for the face-to-face human interaction found at a traditional point of sale.

6. Providing a sense of community. Chat rooms, discussion boards, soliciting customer input, loyalty schemes and affinity programs can help in this respect.

7. Providing reliability and security. Parallel servers, hardware redundancy, fail-safe technology, information encryption, and firewalls can enhance this requirement.

8. Helping customers do their job of consuming. E-tailers can provide such help through ample comparative information and good search facilities. Provision of component information and safety-and-health comments may assist e-tailers to define the customers' job.