E-COMMERCE

E-COMMERCE


DESCRIPTION OF THE SERVICE
E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web.
To better understand what E-Commerce is all about, think about it…...Want to buy a CD for your spouse? Send a greeting card and chocolates? A car perhaps? Buy a concert ticket or better yet, an airline ticket to London, reserve a hotel room, or do business with your suppliers?
Then go online. Its that simple! Its all about doing business online - the E-commerce way.

HISTORY OF E-COMMERCE
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK. Online shopping was invented in the UK in 1979 and during the 1980s it was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford,Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
Although the Internet became popular worldwide in 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet. And by the end of 2000, a lot of European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "ecommerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.

DIVISION IN E-COMMERCE
E-commerce can be divided into:
* E-tailing or "virtual storefronts" on Web sites with online catalogs, sometimes gathered
into a "virtual mall".
* The gathering and use of demographic data through Web contacts.
* Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the business-to-business exchange of data.
*e-mail and fax and their use as media for reaching prospects and established customers
(for example, with newsletters).
*Business-to-business buying and selling.
*The security of business transactions.

TYPES OF APPLICATION IN B2B E-MARKETPLACES
Direct Buyer/Seller Links: Provide a means for sellers to post direct links from a Web site to their own
company Web sites. Potential buyers can follow these links to a vendor’s Web site. Alternatively, there may
be no link and only product and contact information about particular firms (e.g. electronic showrooms,
on-line directories, on-line catalogues).
On-line Auctions: Applications may take three forms: (i) Listing-Agent Auctions where the service provider
acts as an agent running Web-based auctions on the behalf of independent sellers who list their own
auctions; (ii) Merchant Auctions where no independent sellers are identified, and the service provider acts
as a retailer which happens to conduct its transactions by auction; (iii) Hybrid Auctions where elements
of the first two categories are combined. These auctions may take place instantaneously in much the same
way that a product might be sold in a physical auction house, or they may involve buyers placing bids over
the period of time (e.g. the model used by eBay for B2C auctions).
Request for Quotes: This consists of a seller or buyer posting a message to a forum within an on-line
environment or to individual members, indicating a desire to buy or sell items. Buyers and sellers may
be able to select the firms to which their quotes are sent as well as the individual firms from which they
receive quotes. Messages may include price information.
Trade Leads/Classifieds: Buyers and/or sellers post messages to an on-line forum or to individual members
indicating a desire to buy or sell items. Buyers and sellers do not have control over which user firms can
access messages posted to the forum. Messages generally do not include price information.
e-Retail: The service provider sells products directly to users. Visitors take the role of buyers and the site
provider takes the role of a seller. These platforms parallel the exchange processes common on B2C Web sites.

HOW A CONSUMER CAN USE E-COMMERCE SERVICE
When a visitor wants to buy something he/she likes, they merely, visit e-commerce company’s website, choose the products he /she wants to buy, then "add" it to their virtual shopping basket. Items in the virtual shopping basket can be added or deleted, and when he/she is all set to checkout...he/she head to the virtual checkout counter, which will ask his/her name, address etc. and method of payment (usually via credit card). Once he/she have entered all this information (which by the way is being transmitted securely) he/she can then just wait for delivery. Its that simple.


TARGET AUDIENCE
In e-commerce, when someone wants to buy something he/she likes, they merely, visit e-commerce company’s website, choose the products he /she wants to buy, then "add" it to their virtual shopping basket. Then at the checkout he/she will be asked his/her name, address etc. and method of payment (usually via credit card). Once he/she have entered all this information (which by the way is being transmitted securely) he/she can then just wait for delivery.
For using this service internet connection is must. Someone can buy goods from anywhere around the world sitting in his rest room or office. So no need of wasting time in buying products from traditional market. Therefore, we can say that the main target of this service is those persons who are:
1) Busy at their work.
2) Weak and too old to buy something from marketplace.
3) Sick and has fever so can’t go out of the home
4) Cool headed person, don’t want to quarrel and bargain for buying a product.

Not only the customers are targeted by this service. Also businessman can be benefited by using this service. E-trade opens new commercial opportunities to the export-oriented enterprise. In particular, it empowers the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME),
allowing it to participate in international markets where previously market entry and
promotion costs were prohibitive.


ADVATAGES OF E-COMMERCE
Think of eCommerce and the first few features that strike any mind are – a global marketplace – increased sales – increased profits! Not that someone start claiming better margin of profit online, but because various expenses relating to marketing, promotional material, order processing, customer care, inventory management, information storage, telecommunications , considerably slash down.
Some advantages that can be achieved from e-commerce include:

* Ecommerce allows people to carry out businesses without the barriers of time or distance. One can log on to the Internet at any point of time, be it day or night and purchase or sell anything one desires at a single click of the mouse. E-commerce leads to clear rewards in most retail sectors, the Internet allows sellers to reach people around the world, offering their products to a global customer base.


* The direct cost-of-sale for an order taken from a web site is lower than through traditional means (retail, paper based), as there is no human interaction ( no middleman ) during the on-line electronic purchase order process. Also, electronic selling virtually eliminates processing errors, as well as being faster and more convenient for the visitor.

* The day-to-day pressures of the marketplace have played their part in reducing the opportunities for companies to invest in improving their competitive position. A mature market, increased competitions have all reduced the amount of money available to invest. If the selling price cannot be increased and the manufactured cost cannot be decreased then the difference can be in the way the business is carried out. Ecommerce has provided the solution by decimating the costs, which are incurred. So e-commerce lowers the Cost of Doing Business. It has reduced inventory, employees, purchasing costs, order processing costs associated with faxing, phone calls, and data entry, and even eliminate physical stores.

* Speed. Electronic communications allow messages to traverse the world almost instantaneously. There is no need to wait weeks for a catalogue to arrive by post: that communications delay is not a part of the Internet / e-commerce world.

*With right software, store inventory levels, shipping and receiving logs, and other business administration tasks can be automatically stored, categorized and updated in real-time, and accessed on demand.

* In a E-commerce company’s website customers can search capabilities by item, corporate name, division name, location, manufacturer, partner, or price.

* E-commerce reduced marketing/advertising expenses, compete on equal footing with much bigger companies; easily compete on quality, price, and availability.

* Recent advancements in payment technologies allow encrypted, secure payment online.

* Advantages from the buyer’s perspective:
# Reduction in buyer’s sorting out time.
# Better buyer decisions
# Less time is spent in resolving invoice and order discrepancies.
# Increased opportunities for buying alternative products.

* The strategic benefit of making a business ‘ecommerce enabled’, is that it helps reduce the delivery time, labors cost and the cost incurred in the following areas:
# Document preparation
# Error detection and correction
# Reconciliation
# Mail preparation
# Telephone calling
# Data entry
# Overtime
# Supervision expenses


DISADVANTGES OF E-COMMERCE
Some of the disadvantages of e-commerce to the consumer and the businessman are listed below:

- For the Consumer

• Unable to Examine Products Personally: If we buy products through the internet, we are not able to examine the products physically and the quality of the product. Images of the products may be available for viewing. But we can’t buy the product by seeing the image on the internet. There is a risk involved in the quality of the product that the consumer is purchasing.

• Online Purchasing Security: There are possibilities of credit card number theft.

• Limited and selected sensory information. The Internet is an effective conduit for visual and auditory information: seeing pictures, hearing sounds and reading text. However it does not allow full scope for our senses: we can see pictures of the flowers, but not smell their fragrance; we can see pictures of a hammer, but not feel its weight or balance. Further, when we pick up and inspect something, we choose what we look at and how we look at it.

• Privacy, security, payment, identity, contract. Many issues arise - privacy of information, security of that information and payment details, whether or not payment details (eg credit card details) will be misused, identity theft, contract, and, whether we have one or not, what laws and legal jurisdiction apply.















* Figure shows Reasons for consumer complaints (Australia 2002) (EGEC, November 2003:11)
- For the Business

• Hardware and Software: There are specific hardware and software that are essential to start up an e-commerce company that may be big and costly.


• Maintenance of Website: The website must be maintained and updated regularly and this may lead to extra labor costs. The website should update the current information of the new product and the cost of the new product instantly.

• Costs: Even though the company may initially save money by cutting intermediaries, and not having to invest much on capital assets, other costs may be incurred by start-up costs of the company in terms of hardware and software as well as training of employees, costs to maintain the website, and distribution costs.

• Website Stickiness and Customer Loyalty: A company can have a website and exist within the Internet but there may not be enough people visiting the site and purchasing services or products from the company. The Internet provides less expensive advertising but also because of its sheer vastness and the existence of websites of established businesses, it is critical to create a website that is “sticky” enough to attract market share and create loyalty among the acquired market share.

• Training and Maintenance: The company needs well-skilled and trained workers to maintain and create the ecommerce facilities of the company. Many companies prefer to outsource their development and programming tasks to decrease labor costs.

• Security: An e-commerce business exposes itself to security risks and may be susceptible to destruction and disclosure of confidential data, data transfer and transaction risks (as in online payments) or virus attacks.


EXAMPLE OF E-COMMERCE

AMAZON.COM, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washington.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and launched it online in 1995.
Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China and Japan. It also provides global shipping to certain countries for some of its products.
Amazon's initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect a profit for four to five years; the strategy was effective. Amazon grew steadily in the late 1990s while other Internet companies grew blindingly fast. Amazon's "slow" growth provoked stockholder complaints: that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the dot-com bubble burst, and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and, finally, turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: U.S. $5 million, just 1¢ per share, on revenues of more than U.S. $1 billion, but the profit was symbolically important.
The company remains profitable: 2003 net income was U.S.$35.3 million, U.S.$588.50 million in 2004, U.S.$359 million in 2005, and U.S.$190 million in 2006 (including a U.S.$662 million charge for R&D in 2006), nevertheless, the firm's cumulative profits remain negative. As of September 2007, the accumulated deficit stood at U.S.$1.58 billion. Revenues increased thanks to product diversification and an international presence: US$3.9 billion in 2002, U.S.$5.3 billion in 2003, U.S.$6.9 billion in 2004, U.S.$8.5 billion in 2005, and U.S.$10.7 billion in 2006. On November 21, 2005, Amazon entered the S&P 500 index, replacing AT&T after it merged with SBC Communications.
In 1999, Time Magazine named Bezos Person of the Year, recognizing the company's success in popularizing on-line shopping.

IMPROTANT INFORMATION:

* Founded 1994
* Founder Jeffrey P. Bezos
* Headquarters Seattle, Washington, USA
*Area served Worldwide
* Revenue US$ 14.8350 Billion (2007)
* Operating income US$ 655 Million (2007)
* Net income US$ 476 Million (2007)
* Employees 17,000 (2008)[1]
* Slogan "...and you're done"
* Website http://www.amazon.com/



ALIBABA

Alibaba is a Hangzhou-based e-commerce/e-auction company, specializing in global trading. It was founded in 1999 by Ma Yun (Jack Ma), and operates five e-commerce sub-companies which operate different aspects of trading.
The English-language web site alibaba.com specializes in business-to-business trades, especially for international buyers trying to contact Chinese sellers. The Chinese-language web site china.alibaba.com focuses on business-to-business trades within China, while www.taobao.com is a consumer-to-consumer trade site for Chinese customers. The Japanese language website "Japan.alibaba.com" is for Japanese customers.
Japan's Softbank was one of the earliest investors in Alibaba. Its founder, Masyoshi Son, invested $18 million in the company in 2000 and also participated in subsequent rounds of financing.
On August 11, 2005, Yahoo! announced that it would purchase a 40% stake in the company for US$1bn plus Yahoo!'s Chinese assets (worth about US $700M). Alibaba will take charge of Yahoo! China, and Alibaba's founder Jack Ma will remain.
As of January 2007, the Alibaba Group is made up of 5 sub-companies:
1}Alibaba.com: English language global trade website serving small and medium-sized enterprises.
2} Taobao.com: Online auctions web site for customers.
3} Alipay: Online payments web site, processing mainly payments within China.
4} Alisoft: Provider of web services to the Chinese Small and Medium-sized Enterprise
marketplace.
5} Alimama: Online advertising exchange, which allows web publishers and advertisers
to trade online advertising inventory.

In 2008, alibaba.com attracted at least 23 million visitors of which 65 percent hail from China.


IMPROTANT INFORMATION:

Founded Hangzhou, China (1999)
Founder Ma Yun (Jack Ma)
Headquarters 6/F Chuangye Mansion, East Software Park, No.99 Huaxing Road,
Hangzhou, 310099, China
Industry Internet
Employees 4,400 (June 30, 2007)
Website http://www.alibaba.com/

eBay Inc.

eBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. Web site, eBay has established localized Web sites in thirty other countries. eBay Inc. also owns PayPal, Skype, StubHub, and other businesses.
The online auction Web site was founded in San Jose, California, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb, part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus. In 1997, the company received approximately $5 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.
The very first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers." The frequently-repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade PEZ Candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect Store,[3] and confirmed by eBay.
Chris Agarpao was hired as eBay's first employee and Jeffrey Skoll was hired as the first president of the company in early 1996. In November 1996, eBay entered into its first third-party licensing deal, with a company called Electronic Travel Auction to use SmartMarket Technology to sell plane tickets and other travel products. The company officially changed the name of its service from AuctionWeb to eBay in September 1997. Originally, the site belonged to Echo Bay Technology Group, Omidyar's consulting firm. Omidyar had tried to register the domain name echobay.com (the domain has recently been put up for sale) but found it already taken by the Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, so he shortened it to his second choice, eBay.com.
eBay went public on September 21, 1998, and both Omidyar and Skoll became instant billionaires. The company purchased PayPal on October 14, 2002.


IMPROTANT INFORMATION:


Type Public
Founded September 3, 1995
Headquarters San Jose, California And
Salt Lake City, Utah (alternate headquarters), United States
Industry Auctions Online auction hosting.
Revenue $8.46 billion USD (2008)
Employees 15,500 (Q1 2008)
Slogan What ever it is, you can get it on eBay., and Shop victoriously!
Website www.ebay.com


OTER EXAMPLE:

KOLACO, Inc.

Kolaco is an IBM Business Partner specializing in Lotus Notes and Web workflow productivity solutions and services. Kolaco's services extent to include Advanced Systems Administration, Sametime, Blackberry Server Installation, QuickR, Email Archiving, Data Warehousing and WebSphere Portal. Kolaco's products include Trackmeet - a Meeting Minutes and Action Item Tracking System, Xpressite - a website content manager and Xpressite Ecommerce - a website content manager with full ecommerce capabilities. Xpressite includes the most commonly sought after functionality including events and events registration, news, whitepapers, full text searching, dynamic drop down menus and automatic expiration of time sensitive pages. Additional modules or customization services are available for more advanced functionality. Xpressite Bundles are priced for small and mid market companies.
WEBSITE: http://www.kolaco.com/



ORACLE CORPORATION

Oracle Corporation is the second largest software company in the world. Their products include the Oracle database and development tools; and business applications for sales and service, manufacturing and supply chain, and finance and human resources.
Oracle8 delivers the lowest total cost of ownership by making it easy to run database applications on a corporate Internet. A corporate Internet stores data and applications on professionally managed servers, not desktop PCs. This cuts labor and networking costs, while improving system performance and reliability.
Oracle employs 37,000 database and business application specialists, dedicated to providing our customers with consulting, education and support services in 140 countries around the world.


Top 10 Online Retailers:-
Amazon.com
eBay.com
Wal-Mart.com
BestBuy.com
JCPenney.com
Target.com
Kohls.com
Overstock.com
Google.com
Sears.com


FITNESS FOR PURPOSE
E-Commerce is not about just online stores, its about anything and everything to do with money. If you pay (via cash, check, credit card, etc.) E-Commerce is about to make an introduction into your life soon. Banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo are now giving their clients accessibility to their bank accounts via the web.
In short, by implementing E-Commerce, you save money, are online 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week, no traffic jams, shopping crowds, carrying overloaded heavy shopping bags etc. Just more business, the easy way.


A RESEARCH

Why the buyers, engaged shopping in the Ecommerce stores, prefer the traditional stores? The main advantage is the essential economy of time.
Two-thirds from ecommerce store buyers (61 %) have given such answer.
Each second Ecommerce stores users (51 %) also has told, that it is pleased with delivery of the goods to the house.
47 more % have noted, that sometimes it is possible to find the goods which you will not meet in traditional stores in network supermarkets.
There is more than third of respondents (37 %) try to save, buying the goods in the Network, as the prices in the Ecommerce stores are lower.
Such data have been received within the limits of research of an audience the Ecommerce stores, lead by research holding some Monitoring company in the first quarter of current year. In total 2426 buyers and visitors of sites the ecommerce stores in the age of from 14 years and more senior have been interrogated.


ACCEPTANCE

Initially Consumers have accepted the e-commerce business model less readily than its proponents originally expected. Even in product categories suitable for e-commerce, electronic shopping has developed only slowly. Several reasons might account for the slow uptake, including:
Concerns about security.
Lack of instant gratification with most e-purchases (non-digital purchases).
Poorly designed, bug-infested e-Commerce web sites that frustrate online shoppers and drive them away etc.

As a place for direct retail shopping, with its 24-hour availability, a global reach, the ability to interact and provide custom information and ordering, and multimedia prospects, though the progress was slow at the beginning ( the reasons were mentioned above ) but recently this e-commerce service is gaining its acceptance to the customers worldwide, and rapidly becoming a multibillion dollar source of revenue for the world's businesses. A number of businesses already report considerable success. As early as the middle of 1997, Dell Computers reported orders of a million dollars a day. By early 1999, projected e-commerce revenues for business were in the billions of dollars and the stocks of companies deemed most adept at e-commerce were skyrocketing.

According to a CNN Opinion Poll, 62% of respondents who were surveyed said they plan to shop online during the Christmas season. Newsweek devoted its front page story to "shopping.com" in its December 7, 1998 issue (Asian Edition). The title was "Why Online Stores are the Best Thing since Santa Claus". Therefore, we can say that e-commerce is marching towards its success very rapidly in this twenty-first century.


HOW THE SERVICE CAN BE IMPROVED?
The e-commerce juggernaut is not without its dangers and shortcomings. It is drastically affecting traditional firms that cannot continue to do business according to the traditional economic model.
The security weaknesses of the e-commerce infrastructure have been well publicized: Viruses, security intrusions, and inability to provide services because of volume attacks are not phenomena that will disappear. A continuous struggle is evolving among facilitating technologies, intrinsic technological dangers, and the management of these factors
Privacy issues present a different set of challenges. The same technology that facilitates business activities and provides wonderful services is also a major threat to individual freedom. Large databases linking information about economic activity from different sources (purchases, banking activity, medical records) provide great economic advantages by making marketing more efficient, loans more targeted, and medical information ubiquitous. They also create great dangers for privacy potentials for abuse.

Main problems people feel in e-commerce:

In disadvantages service I described all the problems in e-commerce. Some of the main problems are listed below which would help to find in which sectors e-commerce needs to improved:

٭٭ Concerns about security. Many people will not use credit cards over the Internet due to concerns about theft and credit card fraud.
٭٭ Lack of instant gratification with most e-purchases (non-digital purchases). Much of a consumer's reward for purchasing a product lies in the instant gratification of using and displaying that product. This reward does not exist when one's purchase does not arrive for days or weeks.
٭٭ The problem of access to web commerce, mainly for poor households and for developing countries. Low penetration rates of Internet access in some sectors greatly reduces the potential for e-commerce.
٭٭ The social aspect of shopping. Some people enjoy talking to sales staff, to other shoppers, or to their cohorts: this social reward side of retail therapy does not exist to the same extent in online shopping.
٭٭ Poorly designed, bug-infested e-Commerce web sites that frustrate online shoppers and drive them away.
٭٭ Inconsistent return policies among e-tailers or difficulties in exchange/return.

Improvements required….

In many cases, an e-commerce company will survive not only based on its product, but by having a competent management team, good post-sales services, well-organized business structure, network infrastructure and a secured, well-designed website. A company that wants to succeed will have to perform two things: Technical and organizational aspects and customer-oriented. Following factors will make business of companies succeed in e-commerce. Below, all the sectors in which this service needs to be improved is listed:

Sufficient work done in market research and analysis. E-commerce is not exempt from good business planning and the fundamental laws of supply and demand. Business failure is as much a reality in e-commerce as in any other form of business.
A good management team armed with information technology strategy. A company's IT strategy should be a part of the business re-design process.

Providing an easy and secured way for customers to effect transactions. Credit cards are the most popular means of sending payments on the internet, accounting for 90% of online purchases.


The e-commerce juggernaut is not without its dangers and shortcomings. It is drastically affecting traditional firms that cannot continue to do business according to the traditional economic model

The security weaknesses of the e-commerce infrastructure have been well publicized: Viruses, security intrusions, and inability to provide services because of volume attacks are not phenomena that will disappear. A continuous struggle is evolving among facilitating technologies, intrinsic technological dangers, and the management of these factors


Privacy issues present a different set of challenges. The same technology that facilitates business activities and provides wonderful services is also a major threat to individual freedom. Large databases linking information about economic activity from different sources (purchases, banking activity, medical records) provide great economic advantages by making marketing more efficient, loans more targeted, and medical information ubiquitous. They also create great dangers for privacy potentials for abuse.

Consequently, easy fixes are not possible and new methods of establishing order, efficiency, and decency will have to be created. Because the Internet is truly a supranational entity, nations need to band together to maintain order and efficiency and reasonableness in cyberspace. The same economic factors that allow for arbitrage can also be used for self-policing and monitoring of the e-commerce environment.

To benefit fully from this medium, companies/entities and nations must have payment-clearing solutions, customs solutions, and access to the large markets of the economy.

Rogue countries can be excluded from the payment-clearing chains; rogue companies behaving in unacceptable ways can be boycotted and excluded from any affiliation and linking deals

Self-policing seals such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPA) Web Trust and SysTrust products, inspections, and certificates can be used for monitoring and supervision.

International information structures, involving many cooperating organizations, can be on the alert for rogue behavior and spearhead a drive to create reasonable and unbiased rules.

Technology can be used to monitor and detect money laundering, illegal product flows, and information trafficking. But such monitoring must be carefully conceived and supervised, because it could turn into a "Big Brother" type of behavior.

Providing reliability. Parallel servers, hardware redundancy, fail-safe technology, information encryption, and firewalls can enhance this requirement. Providing a 360-degree view of the customer relationship, defined as ensuring that all employees, suppliers, and partners have a complete view, and the same view, of the customer.

Providing complete understanding of the products or services offered, which not only includes complete product information, but also sound advisors and selectors.

Improvement needed in customer care

An e-commerce organization must also provide an enjoyable and rewarding experience to its customers. Many factors go into making this possible. Such factors include:

* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* 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.
* Providing a sense of community. Chat rooms, discussion boards, soliciting customer input and loyalty programs (sometimes called affinity programs) can help in this respect.
* Owning the customer's total experience. E-tailers foster this by treating any contacts with a customer as part of a total experience, an experience that becomes synonymous with the brand.


NON-ICT SOLUTION
An online commerce customer faces mediation in every element and at every stage of the commerce transaction. Customers can't see the merchant, only the merchant's website; they can't touch the merchandise, they can only see a representation; they can't wander a store and speak with employees, they can only browse HTML pages, read FAQs, and fire off email to nameless customer service mailboxes; they can't explore the store's shelves and product space, they can only search a digital catalog.
Traditional commerce is the non-ict solution of e-commerce. Here customers can easily authenticate the identity of a merchant simply by walking into a bricks-and-mortar store.
Customers can touch and feel and hold the merchandise. Tactile cues can drive the decision to buy. A transaction that is face-to-face is usually unmediated: His/Her communication with the merchant is not in the hands of a third party or technology.
The item at the center of the commerce transaction -- the product, service, or property that is to be sold/bought -- has some kind of value. Its price is determined and validated through the performance of the transaction. The seller agrees to a selling price, and the buyer agrees to a buying price. Customers can make purchases anonymously with cash; they usually don't have to give their name or address.

* * Different types of non-ict commerce:

Retail store
This is by far the most common commerce: you walk into a store that is stocked with merchandise for immediate sale -- bookstores, grocery stores, hardware stores -- and find what you want, then purchase it. You leave the store with the product, assuming immediate ownership.
Retail special order
When a retail store doesn't stock the product you want, or is currently out of stock, you often have the option of special ordering the product. If a bookstore doesn't care a small press book title that you want, and the title is in print, you can usually special order the title from the store; the store locates the product, buys it, then resells it you. Delayed gratification, but you have the advantage of dealing with a merchant face-to-face. I would consider rain checks in this same category.
Catalogue store
Smaller towns sometimes have catalogue stores, where a large merchant doesn't see a local demand to keep a store stocked with merchandise, so they instead provide a storefront where people can come in and look at catalogues, and order from a company representative. Sears is a company that operates catalogue stores (or at least they used to), and Service Merchandise functions as a catalogue store for much of their "stock".
Phone order from a catalogue
Mail order catalogues, with their operators standing by, have been around longer than the internet. While you can't touch and feel the merchandise prior to ordering, you can at least speak with a live person when placing the order; I've had some excellent shopping experiences with mail order catalog customer service reps.
Bargaining
I find this the strangest form of commerce transaction; I simply am not used to bargaining... just give me a price, and I'll decide whether or not to pay it. The United States is not a country with a vibrant bargaining culture, but if you travel internationally you will encounter cultures that thrive on bargaining. In the U.S., buying an automobile or shopping at collectors conventions is often a bargaining experience.

INFORMATION AGE

INFORMATION AGE

INTRODUCTION

“ Information Age is a term that has been used to refer to the present era. The name alludes to the global economy's shift in focus away from the production of physical goods (as exemplified by the industrial age ) and towards the manipulation of information. ’’ This the definition of Information age According to the Encyclopedia.
Information age, this is the age which changed the world. It changed our life, as well our lifestyle, it changed the way we access and transfer information. Now, access and transfer of information is easy to perform and it is always accurate and up-to-date.
With the dissemination of information, the hierarchical structure of organization breaks up. There is no need of various layers of management to perform the varied task they were earlier used to do. During the last decade it was professed that one should control management. In the 70’s there was the concept of controlling finance. Today, the dissemination of information various medias has to be managed.
With the advancement of information technologies, various problems are also arising. Firstly, the privacy of the information. Secondly, it would individualize the society.
Also, in this age the kids will be sitting at the terminals and derive knowledge, which at time could be impracticable…! It is being feared that the industrial revolution increased the capability of men by substituting muscle power with machine. This new information age will substitute the human intelligence with machine.
But it is undeniable, through the grace of this age we can talk over the phone and send messages across the seas and listen to the up-to-date news over the world through radio, TV and Internet. The way we access to information sources in this age was hardly dreamed of even 20 years ago; the ability to manipulate and transfer this information at enormous speed has changed the way we run almost every aspect of our lives. This age changed the proverb “ Knowledge is power ’’. Now we say “ Information is power ”. This is because knowledge is the gathering of information. So, it is the information which actually en-rich our knowledge. Therefore, ultimately, information should be the power!!!