E-commerce is defined as the practice of buying and selling goods over an electronic network, such as the internet. Having been more than a decade in the making, e-commerce business 2011 is a booming industry that has made many entrepreneurs successful. There are several ways in which e-commerce differs from traditional commerce, and they are important when setting up a new company.
Along with retail, other industries are also shifting towards the internet. Because internet retail businesses are growing so fast, the advertising agencies have moved to spend more of their budgets on internet ads, for instance. In fact, many sites that offer free services do so by showing ads to their visitors.
E-commerce businesses can be strictly online, or provide a combination of online and in-person services. Even businesses that we do not think of as employing e-commerce often do, such as when a restaurant orders products over the internet, or a shop bills people via electronic funds transfer. Anything that exchanges goods or money via an electronic medium falls under the umbrella term of e-commerce, and thus its use is even more widespread than it seems at first.
Advantages of online businesses include cost, convenience, and more. Prices are typically more competitive online, because customers have more options. Online stores can afford to charge less, because they do not have the expenses of a traditional brick and mortar shop. More items are available through online retailers, because the pool of available shops expands from a person’s immediate location to their entire country or even the world.
Disadvantages include shipping fees and other problems like the lack of ability to handle or try on items. Clothes’ shopping over the internet is especially problematic, given the wide variety of fits possible within a given size across brands and styles. Shipping fees can increase the cost of a heavy product like dog food over that of its local price.
The state of e-commerce business 2011 is that it is here to stay, and growing every day. As the internet reaches more and more people, the market continues to grow. An unfortunate aspect of e-commerce is the tendency for larger retailers to push out smaller ones even to a great extent than is possible in brick and mortar environments. But some small businesses have turned the internet revolution to their advantage, and are prospering online.