Has eCommerce brought Any Change?

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

Ecommerce has brought about both positive and negative changes in trade and the economic and social aspects of the society.

POSITIVE

Ecommerce has reduced the cost of executing sales. This is manifest in the physical establishment of a premise, execution or placement of orders, staffing, customer support and after-sales services.It is cheaper to start up and maintain an online store as compared to a physical one. The former is operational throughout and it serves millions of clients globally. It has minimal variable costs making it possible for it to meet its demand. You will appreciate that inventory costs are no longer duplicated because you require a single online store to cater for thousands of physical stores around the world.

Additionally, it has improved efficiency in selling. All information about the different ranges of products is provided online in highly accessible formats. This shifts transaction costs from merchants to consumers.  Clients search online and they are equipped with all data related to a product that they prefer to buy. As a result, they spend less time at the sales stores, offline.

What is more, ecommerce has effectively minimized the cost of enticing new clients. Traditional means of advertising were so expensive that some traders could not afford. With ecommerce, you can get sites that allow you to market your products at no cost. Alternatively, you can opt for cross-selling which is seven times cheaper than inviting new clients.

Merchants can now ascertain the correspondence of orders with their receipts and invoices. Although this appears to be trivial, many organizations have had to rework on at least a quarter of their transactions due to errors. Hence, by reducing the errors, ecommerce helps to save time.

The new customer support and after-sales service is more efficient that the traditional one. Clients can access databases and gain assistance instantly. This is contrary to traditional support where they had to wait for personnel from the company to visit them for assistance. Apart from cutting costs, this has been noted to enhance the quality of services offered.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS

Ecommerce has stiffened competition in trade. Businesses are not competing within their geographical locations. Instead, they are competing on the international scale. This calls for a lot of input for any entity to survive.

Due to the competition, developing companies have been forced to lay off some of their staff. This is to ensure that they invest more online in order to compete favorably against the well-established companies. As a result, unemployment and is effects are increasing at an alarming rate.

Ecommerce tends to intrude on clients’ right to privacy. This is because of the ease of gathering their personal information online. This information is beneficial to businesses because it enables them to send adverts to their clients. However, if not regulated, you might lose customer trust and end up paying many fines.  You must also not forget that ecommerce is insecure due to its susceptibility to identity theft and credit card fraud.

It is expensive to restructure to ecommerce. Traditionally, merchants required to fill their stores and wait for buyers. With ecommerce, you must search for buyers online. This demands that you have an active website that is well designed. Unfortunately, many upcoming companies find this to be a major setback to their business success.

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Filed under: Tips & Tricks
Tags: change, commerce, e-commerce, ecommerce, online shop, online store, shop, store

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