What is e-commerce and how can it change the way you do business? First, the word “e-commerce” or “e-commerce” is an abbreviation of the term “e-commerce”. Commerce is just another word for business - buying and selling things. Thus, e-commerce is to conduct business in electronic form.
However, there is much more to this story. Therefore, to state my answer, I will rely on the following comparison of how I did business 25 years ago with how I do business today.
My arcade video game started, like many other small businesses, in my garage. The year was 1984. Personal computers were around (remember the IBM PC Jr.), but there was no Internet, no World Wide Web, no e-commerce. When I needed business supplies, I bulldozed 20 miles to a distributor’s store in another city, wrote a check and carried my goods 20 miles back home.
To sell my business, I bought annual yellow pages of telephone ads, as well as local daily and weekly newspapers. I also regularly conducted direct street mail campaigns. As my business grew, there were also some nice referrals word of mouth. Nothing unusual, I was another small businessman serving a small, fully local market.
Today, everything I do has changed, except for two things. I'm still a small businessman, and I still have good referrals from word of mouth.
But now that I need supplies, I sit at my computer and do a product search. Although, there are times when I stay standing or walking, or stay served during lunch, and just use my smartphone. After a few clicks of the mouse, I found, ordered and paid for the highest quality product at the best price, with the cheapest shipping cost and the fastest delivery time. This is one example of one aspect of e-commerce related to the World Wide Web. Oh yes, sometimes best of all, my purchase arrives on my doorstep in a couple of days without me going anywhere.
When it comes to marketing my business, the situation has really changed. Now I can tell people about my business, me and my products, literally, in thousands of ways. And, just using my computer - no driving required. My market square has also grown. The physical boundaries of my business market are no longer determined by how ready I am to drive. Instead, my market is the whole world, thanks to e-commerce and the World Wide Web.
And I no longer limit myself to a small budget for a few, insignificant, too small to read words in several small expensive Yellow Pages catalogs on several pages in not quite suitable categories, surrounded by larger announcements of my competitors in a book full of hundreds of categories, competitors and pages. Now, having several websites, storefronts, articles and some other methods, I can have what effectively makes up the entire book - unlimited categories, unlimited full pages and unlimited words. In addition, all the words have the size, color and font that are most effective for my business.
My marketing costs have also changed. The yellow page and newspaper advertisements were expensive (and still are), which is a few hundred dollars a month. Now my monthly marketing expenses are about one third, which was before. That is, if you think that my internet connections are marketing expenses. In addition, I get to the world, and not just people within a limited distance.
Therefore, today I am still a small businessman, but one who can electronically buy parts and consumables at the local, national and international levels. And who can electronically sell their goods locally, nationally and internationally. I buy or sell, and regardless of whether you buy from me or sell to me, all that is required to complete our transaction is a few mouse clicks by one of us. There are no printed advertisements to reply, no printed newspaper ads to read, no street mail to open, no phone calls to check inventory before making a long trip, not from you or me, and no bank account checking , to write, by mail or pen.
In addition, if we need to communicate, this has also changed. Phone calls and street mail, at least in most common day-to-day business transactions, have been replaced by email (e-mail), mobile text messages, and online chat. If you need to make or receive phone calls, there have also been a lot of big changes. Of course, now there are mobile phones. But for landline users, there have also been big changes. Now we have VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). Thus, for about one-third of the cost of regular telephone service, you can have a local business line, a fax line and an 800 number. Thanks to the Internet.
In fact, if we choose this way, all our business marketing, communications, order and payment can be processed electronically via the Internet. And this is basically what concerns e-commerce.
