Eight Tips For Electronic Commerce
One of the clearest advantages of an electronic channel, represented by e-commerce web pages, is the ability for the company to get in touch with their end-customers without an intermediary.
What this means is the capability to recognize and treat each customer individually in a personalized way (mass customization). Many bank web pages ask to their customers to specify their needs or interests; as an example, a customer may very well be serious about financing services, others in asset management services and so on. The result is a customer "profile", which produces a corresponding profile for the commercial offer: consequently the website reconfigures itself on the foundation of the interests declared through the customer and shows only offers that are presumed to be compatible with his needs.
Direct contact with the market also allows companies to provide better technical information regarding the products and services. This relieves sellers from having to answer to customer's questions and permits the product's features and functionalities to be properly presented to customers, something which was not necessarily assured when product illustration is done through intermediaries, because of wholesalers and shop assistants.
Through e-commerce, websites marketing messages are presented correctly, the strengths of the products are clearly highlighted to customers and different features when compared with competing products may be adequately emphasized.
A vital good thing about direct contact with the customer is the fact that the company can receive real-time feedback from the market.
By studying online purchases produced by customers, the site pages most frequently accessed by users or e-mail messages sent by customers, the company will immediately realize how the market has seen a whole new product. They can react with a whole new advertise campaign. The collection of this data can be used to quickly correct any errors in marketing. Instead of using the old information channels, companies should anticipate to have more opportunities to catch weak but worrying signals.
Through e-commerce Websites trading operations could also be performed more quickly and effectively.
A price change, if approved, may be seen by all at once, avoiding sales clerks or sellers mistakes. A commercial campaign, published on a website, becomes immediately operational for the whole market, without spending time to align the sales forces to the new directives.
In the case of digital products, the electronic channel ensures the immediate delivery of goods without the need to produce a physical copy of the product sent to the customer. Even when it comes to physical products sellers can achieve considerable benefits if you take orders using the net. Requests on the web arrive in real period to sales management, which alleviates the need for one or maybe more central warehouses, saving within the storage of goods in periphery warehouses.
An extreme effect of electronic commerce can be represented through the reorganization of the commercial sector, with the disappearance of some figures like commercial intermediaries as well as the restructuring of the supply chain upstream from the producer.
A computer company that receives orders from customers only by an e-commerce website could quickly get replenishment orders of computer components to its suppliers and taking delivery of what is only necessary to meet its commitments to customers. This would generate an extremely efficient supply chain by reducing inventory and work-in-process.
A digital commercial network allows for analytical background greater flexibility with respect to a physical network. A crowded shop can not attract other customers, that will keep away from it.
The Net sites, if properly dimensioned, can handle spikes of visitors without visible degradation of response times (web pages for example Microsoft or Yahoo handle several million hits a day).
The e-shops can also stay open twenty four hours a day, 7 days per week, answering questions from all over the world without worry or timetables or holidays. Flexibility is additionally when it comes to capability to respond to marketplace. Using information gathered in real time through its websites, the company can modify its proposals, promoting products that have difficulties, making more attractive deals if users indicate weakness in respect to competition. When compared with a conventional commercial network by which the company proposes more products than the market's demand, for e-commerce it is the opposite. The market "pulls" as well as the company follows, trying to stimulate demand, but only from the inclinations observed within the market.
The e-commerce also brings new business opportunities
The capability to sell directly online to a wide audience of customers could generate new areas of business. It really is, by way of example, the situation of financial information within the evolution of financial markets (stock exchanges, foreign exchange, etc.). You can find several Internet providers who joined this business that sell quotes, financial news in real time, or offer opportunities to work online throughout the stock exchange. In general it's possible to produce many information selling services, which customers are disposed to pay. Currently you may subscribe to a market research firm so that you can receive studies and research reports from their Internet sites. One area where new services are developing rapidly is tourism. Inside this area, there are numerous Information Providers that permit you to get information regarding tourist destinations and make reservations at hotels. For example, the subsector for skiing holidays is developing a very strong competition on the net between French regions, Swiss cantons and Italian valleys, with very interesting opportunities from tourist viewpoint.
