 |
|
The source of the best business, financial and legal news |
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
 | |
| |
 |
Business Informations |
|
|
|
Web Store - Why Do You Need One?
Internet has opened a new era of business opportunities. Each day, thousands of new consumers are joining the Internet. More and more companies are adopting Internet as their primary sales and distribution channel. According to Forrester Research -The survey of 130 U.S. companies indicates consumers spent $76 billion shopping on-line in 2002. This represents a 48 percent increase over 2001, and projections for 2003 come close to $100 billion, representing 4.5 percent of total retail sales. As a business you probably understand that in order to stay competitive you must integrate ecommerce to your present business strategy. A little research will show you that there is an extensive array of technology and solutions for enterprise and web store building available in the market. You also perceive that ecommerce sites can cost you from a mere couple of hundred bucks to hundreds of thousand of dollars. How to choose something from so many options that will exactly fit your present need? Although, this might look like a daunting task, a little preparation will definitely help you taking the right decision in your quest for an appropriate ecommerce solution. To understand your requirement better and create a proper ecommerce strategy, you have to ask yourself a number of questions. Below I jotted down some of the questions that, hopefully, will spur your imagination.
If building an ecommerce site from scratch feels too overwhelming to you and you are a small business, my suggestion is - to build a web store with one of the providers similar to Yahoo, Bigstep, Rusbiz etc. The web stores that you can build directly on the Internet have all the necessary features like shopping cart, product catalog and payment gateway as any regular ecommerce site. In most of the cases, you construct web store online from templates and easy-to-use editor and you hardly need to know html or other script languages. You can order your Web Store from Rusbiz right now. The benefits of using a web store that you can build online are enormous. Quick to build: If you have all the materials handy, you can build a web store within a day. Easy in use: You don't have to be a rocket scientist to build a fully functional ecommerce site. Step by step procedures of making pages from templates allow anybody to create a professionally looking web store in no time. Affordable: Although, some of the providers charge commissions on your sales, as Yahoo does, in most of the cases your expenses are less than US$ 100 a month to have a good web store. The only disadvantage you have with this kind of web stores is you might not be able to give the customized look and feel to the site as you intend to. Then again, once you start generating enough sales through your web store, if you must, you can always build an ecommerce site by hiring web design companies. If you are still hesitant in starting online business using web stores I would suggest you to read the following eventual benefits that you may have from ecommerce. Increase your sales & profits If you are a brick and mortar company, online commerce will definitely increase your sales and with it profits. Enhance your company image Today, even small companies understand the importance of having a website. Planned, sophisticated and professional website creates positive image of the company and help building brand name. Reduce costs and save money If required features are available on the website practically all business processes are possible to carry out on the Internet, which allows you to reduce overhead costs, costs incurred due to documentary mistakes, document processing costs, etc. Improve customer service Frequently Asked Questions pages, forums, Internal Messaging Service, chat lines, etc. all these features help you effectively running your customer service. Become a global player Thanks to the reach of Internet you are no longer confined to a certain geographical boundary any more. You can sell products to any place of the world 24 hours a day. Add sales channels By joining e-marketplaces and B2B exchanges you can significantly increase the number of sales channels available to you. Reduce supply chain cycle If you automate supply chain processes through Internet, you will be able to shorten the entire cycle from months to days. You will be even able to eliminate certain phases of your supply chain process. Market products and services There are numerous ways of getting traffics on your site and popularize your products. In fact, you can get more people in your web store than it is physically possible to accommodate in a bricks-and-mortar shop. Compete with large companies On the Internet you may successfully compete with the behemoths of your industry and even curve market shares out of them. Low start-up costs Normally, starting a brick and mortar business requires significant cost involvement. On the Internet - opposite is true! To start a business online you hardly need any major investment. No entry barrier As you know, many businesses in real world are tightly controlled by certain groups. On the internet there is no such barrier! Anybody can start any business of his choice. No need to close existing sales channels By adopting Internet as a sales channel you do not loose anything as your web store only complements existing sales conduit. If you are new to ecommerce world, I would advise you to go slow! First create a plan with long term and short term objectives. Try implementing your plan gradually. Make sure that you do not spend too much money on your initial ecommerce project. Remember! Over 80 percent of all software projects do not finish in time within the budget; and do not work as planned! About The Author Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from http://www.rusbiz.com.
MORE RESOURCES:
ecommerce - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Merchant Account Insider Secrets - Accept Credit Cards Online The process of learning how to accept payments on the Internet is similar to the course of figuring out how to launch a business. What at first seems puzzling and intimidating may be viewed as straightforward and easy to understand if one has the right guide or manual. Are You Making These E-Commerce Excuses? (part 1) A year ago, I had big plans to re-vamp my web site. I was going to publish my e-newsletter twice a month - every month, and I was going to upgrade my own e-commerce capabilities. Top Ten Qualities to Look for in an Online Pharmacy As you may have noted, there are thousands or even hundreds of thousands of websites selling pharmaceutical products or drugs. These are called ONLINE PHARMACIES or PHARMACIES ONLINE. How to Write a Landing Page Is there a difference between writing a landing page and any other web site page? Yes and no. But mainly, yes. How To Stay Cutting Edge In Online Business Let's face it, there's just way too much information out there for any one individual to try to keep abreast of. And yet, if we shut ourselves off from the world, we risk building our businesses in a vacuum and suffering on the bottom line. How To Accept Credit Cards Without a Merchant Account To increase sales on your website, you must accept credit cards. To process credit cards, you could apply for a merchant account through your bank or other financial institution. Credit Card Merchant Account Basics Knowing which credit card merchant account to get can be very confusing. There are thousands and thousands of banks, merchant account providers and third party sales teams that can offer you all kinds of incentives. The Origins of E-Commerce What is the Internet?In order to provide a discussion on the Internet it is essential to provide a short description on what the Internet actually is. Put in the most basic of terms the Internet can be described of as a massive collection of computers that are sited around the world and that are connected together in order to create a huge network that allows information to be collated and shared by millions of people. Website Marketing: 10 Resourceful Things You Can Do With A Product That Doesnt Sell Do you have any product that has not been moving well?Would you like to learn what to do with it?Here are website marketing secrets to help you:1. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to the product. Keep Your Customers Happy by Organizing Your Payment Options Anyone using a slow, or an awkward payment processor had better wake up!There are some very slick ways to transfer money around the globe, in todays, lightning fast world, both your customers and your suppliers demand payment in the click of a mouse.The processing companies have been fiercely competing with each other for years now, every so often, they revamp and recalibrate. How To Accept Credit Cards Online Anyone with an online business, whether for auctions, services, or virtually any type of product, has asked the same question at some time during their quest to create the ultimate online business - "How do I accept credit cards?"Since over 90% of all transactions on the Internet involve customers paying by credit card, accepting plastic money rates a must for almost any business.The problem for most small online business owners involves the high cost of setting up and maintaining a credit card merchant account. 10 Tips To Build, Manage And Profit From An E-Commerce Website Just because you've built your e-commerce website doesn't mean the customers will begin to come. You need to bring in the visitors, showcase your products, convince them to buy, and bring them back yet again to make any significant gains. Grow Your Business Using B2B Emarketplace - Part I If you are a small to medium size company and selling or planning to sell products and services over the Net and still did not try out emarketplaces, you are simply loosing a great opportunity!Research firm eMarketer predicts that worldwide B2B ecommerce revenues will surpass US$ 1.4 trillion by the end of 2003. Creating Legal Framework for E-commerce Taxation; non-tax statutes We have to make amendments in existing substantive and procedural laws to make it compactable with changing technological advancement of e-commerce?Amending Contract Act, 1872I recommend the amendments in section 3 and 4 of contract Act 1872 so as to make the compactable with section 13, 14 and 15, of the electronic transaction ordinance 2002 related with attribute of communication, acknowledgement of receipt and time and place of the communication between the parties. Either additional section should be added for acceptance device of 'electronic communication', or words be added in matter connected with electronic communication relevant section 13,14 and 15 be evoked while interpretation of section 3 and 4 of contract Act 1872. Old Habits Die Hard in the Third Age Years I spent a lifetime in retailing and I'm still at it in retirement; albeit virtually.You know how it goes. Guide To Safe Online Shopping Online shopping can be a little frightening to people who are new to the internet,but as long as you follow a few easy rules you should have no problem shopping online.What are the rules ?First before buying from an online store find out what that online stores return policy is. Intranet Portal - Business Case ROI The days of easy money are overIn these post-dot-com days of the 21st Century, the hype attached to IT is well and truly over. The modern Board is deeply suspicious of large IT projects with questionable benefits and a long-term payback period. 12 Powerful Ways To Use Autoresponders That Will Take YOU To The Top If only I had known that autoresponders are a necessity to your online business when I first ventured online, I would have saved a lot of time and money. You have to automate in as many areas as possible and if used responsibly, autoresponders can be your best friend. Using Drop Shipping for E-commerce Thanks to the ubiquity of the internet, online virtual businesses have become very popular business opportunities. Online retail stores are gradually playing a more important role in our lives than the traditional 'brick-and-mortar' retail shops. Paypal Primer To conduct business on the Internet, whether informal, one-time only transactions between two friends, or a full-fledged business selling products or services, payment arrangements have to be made. Before 1998, this often meant either checks sent through snail-mail, or very expensive, and often hard-to-obtain, merchant accounts for online credit card processing.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
