The world has changed the way it conducts business, offering businesses an extended way to increase capital. E-commerce has incorporated all the activities that a business performs when buying and selling products, and services over the Internet. With the increasing usage of the Internet, technology and e-commerce, these items continue to provide opportunities for businesses to stay in the global market. There are many technologies that provide support for e-commerce related activities, so it is important to understand the unique features of e-commerce technology, the three benefits of universal standards, and the major players in an industry value chain, and how they are impacted by e-commerce technology. The eight unique features were …show more content…
Before e-commerce, customers had no way of knowing prices of products outside of their locations unless it was advertised in newspapers or somewhere else; therefore businesses were able to increase prices without consumer knowledge. Technology has allows merchants to develop a way to brand products, collect data, obtain customer’s information, interest, and purchase history. Not only is it important to know about your customers, it is equally important to know about your competition, and the products and services they have to offer customers. The goal is to keep prices and services the same, or cheaper than your competition, merchants have to find a way to convince customers to shop with them. Ubiquity is defined as the existence or appearance of being everywhere and at all times. The great thing about this feature is that it does not confine you, and the ability to shop from any …show more content…
The major players in the industry value chain are suppliers, manufacturers, transporters, distributors, retailers, and customers. The objectives are to reduce costs associated with manufacturers and their products, increase capital, and provide new opportunities for the key players. Everything is connected, so when manufacturers are able to communicate directly with the consumers, they save cost by cutting the distributors and the retailers from the chain. The distributors must have an effective and efficient system in place to reduce their cost, and the retailers have to focus on maintaining a great relationship with their customers. Everyone is working to increase their volume of customers, why the customer is seeking quality, lowest prices, and cheapest shipping
Laudon, Kenneth C. Traver, Carol. E-commerce: Business. Technology. Society 3th ed. Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle NJ, 2007.
Technology plays a big part of the e-retailing industry. It has many positive qualities that impact the industry. Technology simplifies the purchasing process. Since the industry is web based, it helps eliminate the nuisance of not having products when wanted by having the capabilities of placing orders 24/7 at any computer with web access. Technology will also standardize the purchasing process thus reducing processing costs associated with traditional processing.
A supply chain is a system through which organizations deliver their products and services to their customers. The network begins with the basic ingredients to start the chain of supply, which are the suppliers that supply raw materials, ingredients, and so on. From there, it will transfer the supplies to the manufacturer who builds, assembles, converts, or furnishes a product. The chain now needs to get the product to the consumer by transporting the finished product from the manufacturer through a warehouse or distribution center. An example is that Wal-Mart has a nearby distribution center where products are delivered there and then split up to be delivered to a retail Wal-Mart. “Wal-Mart will take responsibility for breaking down larger loads and delivering the product to other Wal-Mart stores” (Ehring 1).
The future of economic competitiveness for most enterprises relies on entrance and active participation in the e-commerce market. An essential problem with e-commerce is that the controls and organization are different for each site. There is no standard way of building t...
They expect more from retailers every day better value, more convenience and solutions that help them save time. Technology has given consumers almost limitless choices when it comes to what to buy, how to buy it, and how much to pay for it and they are taking advantage of it in increasing numbers. We are broadening our offering by growing our online businesses, developing our store formats and improving our assortment to give our customers shopping alternatives that meet their changing needs. We are accelerating the growth of our online businesses so our customers can shop when, where and how they want either in our stores or online,
As a large online retailer, the firm should not worry to charge a higher price to its certain customers. Otherwise, the customers should be happy as by just clicking a mouse or touching a screen, they have been able to shop and pay for their purchases without leaving the comfort of home. The firm could charge a low price to attract new customers, while extracting a higher price from loyal customers. As price discrimination increases, and price evaluation becomes easier, discriminated customers may choose to shop online elsewhere. But, price - changing online is not popular among shoppers. Some of them said it would bother them to find out that other people paid a lower price for the same
"Showrooming" was considered the new consumer behavior after E-commerce (online retail market) has emerged which was expanding at a rate of 17% per year. "Showrooming" is when shoppers enter the physical stores to view the features of the products in which they want to buy and they would leave the store and purchase the products online for lower prices. This consumer behavior poses a great threat on the brick and mortar retailer stores by creating an alternative to buying products for much lower prices which impacts a number of sales the retail stores are making. Another factor that contributed to the concept of showrooming was the new price matching mobile applications which allowed consumers to make price comparisons
Price / product comparison: E-commerce helps for the textile firms to display their products online. Customer can view, compare, analyse the different prices and quality of the different products. More than that at a time a single person can compare ‘n’ number of products of different textile industries.
"The long-term challenge is to accelerate the development of next-generation technologies in a way that avoids repeating the mistakes of the past" (Global Technology Initiative, 2003). Even with these challenges, e-commerce is changing the face of business worldwide every day. In mid 1999, General Motors announced a development, which simultaneously accelerated the process of globalization and e-business (Reynolds, 2000).
A supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products, and deliver the products to customers through a distribution system [1]. The basic objective of supply chain is to “optimize performance of the chain to add as much value as possible for the least cost possible.
The aim of the value chain structure is to maximize the value creation while minimizing costs. Value Chain Analysis is a useful tool for working out how you can create the greatest possible value for your customers. Value chain analysis relies on the rudimentary economic principle of competitive advantage -companies are best served by operating in divisions where they have a relative prolific benefit compared to their competitors. Concomitantly, companies should ask themselves where they can deliver the paramount value to their customer. To conduct a value chain analysis, the company begins by identifying each part of its production process and recognizing where steps can be purged or enhancements can be made. These improvements can result
The Information revolution is changing our daily lives. With the rapid development of computers and the internet, online commerce has become quite common and plays an important role in the modern world. Online business has been booming in recent years. US online retail sales rose an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009 (“US Online Sales Up,” 2009). The growth of online sales may be due to the growing number of consumers who shop online.
E-marketing is a fast growing and rapid platform for any form of business. EBay has been highly successful over recent years and this is a perfect example of an online business. The internal and external environments are constantly changing and in order to keep up with these changes, businesses and organisations must make relevant changes, and generate new strategies to keep up with contemporary developments in e-marketing and to also maintain their position in their market in comparison to their competitors.
E-commerce is about two decades old, yet due to its fascinating dimensions, it remains a challenging area for researchers and professionals.
The report also talks about the differences between, advantages and disadvantages of e-business and e-commerce. Recommendations and advice have been given in the end for businesses intending to adopt an e-business dimension.