Unanswered Questions On Electronic Commerce That You Should Know About
Among the clearest advantages of an electronic channel, represented by e-commerce sites, will be the ability for the company to make contact with their end-customers without an intermediary.
This means the ability to recognize and treat each customer individually in a personalized way (mass customization). Many bank web sites ask to their customers to specify their needs or interests; for instance, a customer might be enthusiastic 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 web site reconfigures itself on the basis of the interests declared through the customer and shows only offers that will be 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 reply to to customer's questions and permits the product's features and functionalities to be properly presented to customers, something that was not necessarily assured when product illustration is done through intermediaries, as a result 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 benefit from direct contact with the customer is the fact that the company can receive real-time feedback from the market.
By studying online purchases made 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 brand new product. They can react with a brand new advertise campaign. The collection of these facts may be used to quickly correct any errors in marketing. Rather than using the old information channels, companies should expect to have more possibilities to catch weak but worrying signals.
Through e-commerce Web pages trading operations also can 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 web page, becomes immediately operational for the whole market, without spending period to align the sales forces to the new directives.
In the case of digital products, the electronic channel guarantees the immediate delivery of goods with no need to produce a physical copy of the product sent to visit the following page customer. Even in the example of physical products sellers can achieve considerable benefits if you take orders using the net. Requests over the internet arrive in real time for you to sales management, which alleviates the requirement for one or more central warehouses, saving within the storage of goods in periphery warehouses.
An extreme effect of electronic commerce can be represented by the reorganization of the commercial sector, with the disappearance of some figures like commercial intermediaries and also the restructuring of the supply chain upstream from the manufacturing company.
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 required to meet its commitments to customers. This would generate a very efficient supply chain by reducing inventory and work-in-process.
A digital commercial network allows for greater flexibility with respect to a physical network. A crowded shop can not attract other customers, that will keep away from it.
The Web sites, if properly dimensioned, can handle spikes of visitors without visible degradation of response times (websites such as Microsoft or Yahoo handle several million hits a day).
The e-shops also can stay open twenty four hours a day, 7 days a week, answering questions from all over the world without worry or timetables or holidays. Flexibility can also be with regards to capability to respond to marketplace. Using information gathered in real time through its sites, the company can modify its proposals, promoting products which have difficulties, making more attractive deals if users indicate weakness in respect to competition. Compared to a conventional commercial network in which the company proposes more products than the market's demand, for e-commerce it is the opposite. The market "pulls" and the company follows, trying to stimulate demand, but only from the inclinations observed in the market.
The e-commerce also brings new business opportunities
The capability to sell directly online to a wide audience of customers may generate new areas of business. It really is, for example, the case of financial information in the evolution of financial markets (stock exchanges, foreign exchange, etc.). You'll find several Internet providers who joined this business that sell quotes, financial news in real time, or offer opportunities to work online through the stock exchange. In general it's possible to create 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. In this area, there are actually numerous Information Providers that allow you to get information regarding tourist destinations and make reservations at hotels. By way of example, the subsector for skiing holidays is developing an extremely strong competition online between French regions, Swiss cantons and Italian valleys, with very interesting opportunities from tourist viewpoint.
