Online shopping is becoming more popular with Canadians. For retailers, the implications are considerable. New strategies for attracting customers are being deployed by retailers that integrate ecommerce into their 'traditional' retail businesses. While retailers are benefitting from ecommerce business they must face on-going issues associated with utilizing ecommerce technology. Technology issues, security concerns and a rapidly growing industry are some of the challenges facing retailers within the ecommerce market.
Retailers are using ecommerce to enhance their businesses. Statistics Canada has stated that ecommerce sales in 2005 were $39.2 billion Canadian. (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2006) The retail sector has recognized the considerable gains to be made and is responding by offering products online with the option of having customers pick up their products within their retail stores. It is their hope that once the customer is in the store they will make impulsive purchases and this seems to be working as the article from Economist Intelligence units states that numerous retail studies are showing consumers have spent more with retailers that can offer them the opportunity to visit the store to obtain their product. Using this approach allows retailers the means to enhance their existing businesses with ecommerce services.
Information security continues to be the main reason more customers are not shopping online. A survey of 688 people showed that the problem is two-fold. Some of the survey respondents, 42%, stated that fear for the security of their credit cards was the reason they had not made on-line purchases while another 36% stated that they were concerned about private information being distributed on ...
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Works Cited
Chain Store Age. (2006). News. Retail Technolgoy Quarterly , 82 (5), 6A-6A.
Clarke, J. (2009). Resilience under attack: Techniques for continuing online business in the face of security compromise. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning , 3 (3), 222-226.
Economist Intelligence Unit. (2006, July 06). Ecommerce thrives in Canada. Retrieved March 18, 2011, from www.ebusinessforum.com: http://www.ebusinessforum.com/index.asp?layout=printer_friendly&doc_id=8809
Mangiaracina, R., & Perego, A. (2009). Payment systems in the B2C eCommerce: Are they a barrier for the online customer? Journal of Internet Banking & Commerce , 14 (3), 1-16.
Statistics Canada. (2010, September 27). E-commerce: Shopping on the Internet. Retrieved March 25, 2011, from Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100927/dq100927a-eng.htm
Key Issues The growing popularity of online retailing is attracting competition from traditional and online multi-retailers such as Wal-Mart and Amazon, which are gaining considerable market shares in many of the product segments included in the specialty retail sector. Currently, the majority of revenue is generated by store sales, but online sales from the stores’ websites are increasing. With the US dollar getting weaker, international sales from these US based websites are increasing too. This creates a significant positive outlook for the large incumbent players but also acts as a significant barrier of entry for new players.
Amazon.com operates in the Online Retail Industry. The sector is one of the fastest growing globally and is outperforming the ordinary retail marketplace. It was created after 1995 and it was only the Internet that made it possible for such an industry not only to be established but to become one of the most flourishing sectors in the business environment. What is interesting is that Amazon.com, together with eBay is the pioneer in the field. Both companies were launched in 1995 and are still extremely successful. The creation of e-mail in 1996 had a huge impact on the development of online retail by introducing a fast and easy way to communicate with customers. For this two-year period Internet usage doubled annually, thus, allowing for the expansion of the industry. Google is launched a year later, in 1998, only to become the most used search engine in the world and an essential partner for the online retailers by helping them tailor their websites to customer’s personal preferences and by advertising. After that, more and more people see the opportunity in the growing industry and enter it. By 2001 there are more than 513 million Internet users globally, which calls for action in terms of creating regulations and laws to protect the users and personal property. In 2003, Apple launches iTunes, and provides a platform for low-cost digital downloads. Another major change is the appearance of social media from 2004, which is one of the biggest influencer on the state of the industry. With the launch of iPhone in 2007, this trend strengthens as people get to enjoy the Internet anywhere they want to. From then on, technological advancements have made it extremely easy and fun to shop online, making it ...
“The retail landscape has shifted toward e-commerce, but there are opportunities for department stores to capitalize
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.
Advances in technology, particularly in regards to social media and online shopping, have ‘dramatically changed the way we collect and use personal information.’ Personal information can be transferred globally and more rapidly now than ever before. ‘This has influenced the way we think about privacy and the protection of personal information.’ (Australian Government, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner) Despite the advantages of online shopping, such as the large availability and convenience it brings, it also presents consumers with a number of risks, which are not apparent in the traditional retail environment.
Based on these concerns, retailers in the international marketplace have their work cut out for them. But through proper education of consumers, and the ever-expanding growth of the infrastructure in many countries, the future seems to be leaning heavily towards using the Internet for many needs.
From PayPal to Debit cards, from EFT to Credit cards, this modern world has been inundated with new ways of making business transactions. Instead of the conventional use of dollars and nickels, now there are electronic payment systems. These types of systems allow for better trust and acceptance between consumer and businesses. In the traditional way of buying a product, one would see a product in person, and pay for it with cash or credit. In e-commerce, the business uploads images of its products online and it enables its customers to shop it using any type of electronic payment system.
What are the elements of a good online retailing (e-tailing) website? Give examples, including the web address of a firm's website that you feel uses these elements successfully
Shoppers were not always able to purchase items with just a few clicks of a mouse and have them shipped right to their front door. In the sixties and seventies, consumers would shop at local bakers, butchers, and corner markets, which later big chain supermarkets such as Wal-Mart eventually replaced. In addition, home shopping catalogs were also a popular way to shop, especially for families that lived in remote locations. It was not until the nineties when the World Wide Web revolutionized online shopping. Shopping over the web is great for everyone especially for people with busy schedules that do not have the time to go to the actual store or that work during the day and the stores have closed by the time he or she gets off work. Some e-stores
The Internet is rapidly becoming widespread and widely used as a tool for globalization across the world. As the Internet became more easily accessible by most people in the world, the web is bringing significant implications and changes to the way we live, including the way we shop. There is a rapid growth with e-commerce and moving businesses onto the web and retail success is no longer about stores and shopping centers. In developed countries, about two thirds of the population have access to the Internet making the option of online shopping is easily accessible to most people (Valerio). With the ease of shopping in your own home there are many benefits of doing your shopping online. Consumers can easily compare prices online, there is a larger range of products on the web, you can save time by having your shopping delivered right to your doorstep and it also overcomes physical barriers. Over the last decade online shopping has challenged and replaced the traditional means of physically going into shops as the digital world has provided customers with further convenience, flexibility and comfort from shopping from your own home.
...shop at home and any time without going anywhere and just sit in front of the laptop, computer or any other devices that may connect to the internet to do purchasing. Consumers usually want to save their time and money to search products and services by using internet. It is easy for them to survey the items that they want and making purchase by online easily. It can take several days physically o go form a location to different location and it cost customer’s time and fuel to find the items that hard to find. Apart from that, e-retailing also is an efficient way for retailing business to do business transaction. The cost to start the business is less than doing business with brick and mortar. Plus, fewer license and permits required doing this type of business. Fewer employees needed to run this e-retailing business and it can avoid from paying high utility costs.
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.
For instance they can purchase anything at any point of time without going out to any physical store; they can compare the prices of the product from different websites and can purchase from the site where they are getting cheaper; it also saves time; customers can also avoid pressure when having a face to face interaction with the salesperson etc. We can summarize these factors into 4 categories:
In conclusion, e-commerce makes our life much more easier, because it saves time, we can get our goods with in a short period of time, other than that it connects to businesses around the world, we can buy goods that we can’t get from the local market. The last thing we also can get goods that are not available in the shopping mall and with the cheaper price. As I know, using e-commerce to shop online is the right choice for because it is so convenient.