Six components of a good e-commerce site Written by Nowshade Kabir
Many of your competitors are already doing business through Internet. You read that yearly growth rate of e-commerce is over 25 percent. E-commerce segment for businesses that sells to other businesses or B2B, as it is called, is escalating even in a better pace. Naturally, at one point, you too decide that you need to have a piece of this action! But, what are main characteristics of a good e-commerce site that you must consider even before you build one?A small research will show that there are numerous choices for you to make your business presence online. In fact, you can be overwhelmed with all possibilities that are available on Internet to build an e-commerce website. However, it is important to plan your website before even shop around for tools to build your site. There are some basic components that all e-commerce sites include, such as product or service description pages, a shopping cart - so that buyers can select and keep items from your product list till they generate a purchase order or an invoice, a payment mechanism – so that buyers can pay for your products online or offline. But, you also need to pay attention to following crucial aspects: Product information Buyers take their decision whether to buy a product from your site or not depending on information that you provide. That’s why product should have a clear and high-quality picture, short and detailed specifications. If necessary add attachments of diagrams, sketches, video etc. along with product specification. Write clearly and prominently all sales terms and after sales supports terms, etc. If you have many products, it is better to use an industry standard classification system to categorize your products. The goal is to have all information related to product available on website, so that customer can take a positive buying decision instantly. Different Ordering Methods The ultimate goal of your e-commerce site is to make sales. Many people still don’t feel comfortable to make payments through online transactions. You would be better off if you include ordering processes by fax, telephone and ordinary mail. In fact, to have a telephone number for customer support and order is a must for any e-commerce site as it gives buyers some extra feelings of security. That way they know that they can always talk to a live person if anything goes wrong.
| | E-marketplace – Facts and FictionsWritten by Nowshade kabir
Not long ago, industry pundits were touting B2B marketplaces or exchanges as Internet era panacea for productivity and cost-cutting problems of corporate world. Buoyed by excessive investor interest and driven by a desire to cash in on enormous dot-com valuations of late 90s, marketplaces were sprouting like autumn mushrooms. With collapse of stock market, it did not take much time for burgeoning B2B marketplaces to come to a screeching halt!When in 2001 high profile marketplaces like Chemdex, a life science marketplace started to tumble down, and most of marketplaces started to show sign of disappointing growth rate, it became clear that something is wrong with prevailing business model of b2b e-marketplaces. Optimists claim nothing is wrong with B2B e-marketplaces, as a new technology, it is merely going through normal evolutionary stages. Others feel that business processes are way too complex an issue, substantially based on human behavior and intricate relationships; and this complexity will prevent wide spread implementation of online supply chain mechanisms through B2B exchanges. But, truth is probably somewhere in between! There is no doubt that any business, irrelevant to its size, is able to create some sorts of value if they use B2B marketplace effectively. As far as B2B E-commerce is concerned, most agree, that eventually businesses have to do significant part of their transactions online. The only thing is - it might take a bit more time for widespread adoption, than initially expected. Slow implementation of B2B e-marketplaces is a natural consequence of some inadvertent stumbling blocks. 1. The investment in B2B sector started to dry up at end of 2001 as unrealistic expectations of many investors and funds did not materialize. As a result of this, many exchanges were forced to close down; and much needed transformation in technology process slowed down in existing ones due to liquidity challenges. 2. Many early marketplaces were built in a hurry to exploit prevailing at that time budding stock market. For these marketplaces, value creation for participants was not a priority. By time they realized that members need something more than comparison shopping and product display ability, it was a bit too late for quite a few of them. 3. Contrary to popular believe, buyers did not start flocking on to e-marketplaces as expected. As it became clear, buyers require real incentives in order to go through complex process of online dealing. In most cases, in order to get integrated to an e-marketplace, buyers are ready to learn, hire professionals, and invest on technology if they know that most of their offline suppliers are available on a particular exchange. But, until then, they prefer to refrain from changing their way of doing business.
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