What exactly is E-commerce?
E-commerce is the easiest way to attract a large base of consumers to buy your products online. The concept of e-commerce is all about using the Internet to do business better and faster. It is about giving customers controlled access to your computer systems and letting people serve themselves. It is about committing your company to a serious online effort and integrating your website with the heart of your business. If you do that, you will see results!
Any place and any way that your business communicates with its customers, you should think about how you could have done it online. That is the power of e-commerce. Electronic commerce is the paperless exchange of business information using electronic data interchange (EDI), e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, fax transmissions, and electronic funds transfer. It refers to Internet shopping, online stock and bond transactions, the downloading and selling of “soft merchandise” (software, documents, graphics, music, etc.), and business-to-business transactions.
Most businesses already exist in the bricks-and-mortar world of commerce. Adding a Web site is a means to enhance their business. For Internet startups, the Web site is the only place that they do business. In both regular commerce and e-commerce you need to find a way to attract customers to your place of business. This is embodied by your marketing strategy, and everything from advertising to word of mouth fits into this category.
In order to do business, you also need a way to take orders and process payment. In e-commerce, orders have to be placed and items shipped. Orders are usually handled through interactive, online forms. Money is another issue easily handled in traditional commerce. Customers in a typical retail store pay by check, cash, or credit or debit cards while online customers cannot pay by cash or check, only through electronic means. E-commerce transactions have to take place through secure electronic connections and special merchant accounts for accepting payment. There are a few different options when it comes to E-commerce which are explained below along with pricing.
The whole goal is to make your business prosper and put more money into your pocket by strategically targeting your core group and showing the world your products. Call Design Done Right today to get a FREE CONSULTATION on what E-Commerce can do for you!
