In India there are many small entrepreneurs setting up an e-commerce model for their businesses. Ecommerce can be fruitful for an organization over the web only if there is a solution to an existing customer problem. This paper aims at introducing basic e-commerce concepts to entrepreneurs who wish to set up an online model (Internet).
To setup an online business one needs to get a domain name (for ones website), which is generally ones business name or generic word which also includes a dot com, dot net, dot org extension. One needs to check for the availability of the domain name using the domain search tools. While selecting a domain name one needs to keep in mind that the domain name is relevant to the business, makes marketing sense, its not too long, easy to recall and has the right extension i.e., edu for education sites, org for organizations, .com for commercial. After this buy space on the web for hosting the website.
While designing a website one needs to go through the following checklist:
1) Simple and consistent Navigation across various pages throughout the website.
2) Use a plain, sans-serif font, like Arial, on a white background.
3) Include an opt-in offer to collect email addresses.
4) Do not use lots of graphics and flash unless it adds value to the message.
5) Customer Friendly by customizing features for a particular customer, however, this could be a costly affair for a small business, therefore, use it wisely.
Once the website is designed for various offerings we need to take care of security issues with respect to personal data of our clients and payment for any transaction on purchase of any offerings. In order to conduct any transaction over the web once a payment is made over the internet, site owner should have a mechanism to collect funds and deposit the money into a bank. In order to collect funds, you need to have a merchant account and a payment gateway.
A merchant Account is for online retailers. Two kinds of transactions can be carried out through a merchant account i.e.,
1) To allow Non POS (Point of sale) transactions using credit cards.
2) Without a card swiper.
An important point to note is that a Merchant account is not the same as a bank account. It acts as a middleman between you payment gateway and your bank account, accepting funds from credit cards which are then deposited into your bank. The bank takes funds from the buyer's account and deposits into your account.
The growth of online business has grown enormously over the years. Cliptomania is a family operated and owned small e-business that primarily sells clip on earrings (Brown, DeHayes, Hoffer, Martin, & Perkins, 2012, p. 308). Cliptomania early developments were very modest, and as such the company experienced copious strategic dilemmas. An initial strategic dilemma that the company encountered when establishing and building their new e-business undertaking was to create a website for the business operations and essentially to have it fully operable. The owners, Jim and Candy elected to hire a vendor to host the website and additionally utilize the IT systems resources of the vendor to sustain their business. At the very beginning they exploited the offerings of the Yahoo Store. However, continuing down this avenue of using the services of the Yahoo Store inevitably became too costly. By using the services and business offerings of a vendor made it convenient and effortless for Jim and Candy to start their e-business store. Unfortunately the couple did not have much in the way of professional help, and so they had to create and put together the website by themselves. Additionally they also had to deal with establishing their online credibility as many customers preferred to call in their orders just to talk with a real person before being comfortable enough to place their orders via the webpage.
Payment segment has their own substitute product for example offline payment methods such as cash, cheque, money order and established credit card merchants. EBay’s payment segment also has to compete against other online payment service.
The Internet is an amazing and powerful business tool if it is used in a way that will help an existing or new business become more profitable than it would be without it. There are four basic things that a company or person must keep in mind when trying to take their organization or idea online. These considerations are to 1) know exactly what you want out of your website, 2) know how this website connects to every other part of your business (internal environment), 3) know how this website meets your customers / suppliers needs (external environment), and 4) know when to say “when.” This list is not meant to be an exhaustive list or a complete set of criteria by which to judge a company’s integration into the World Wide Web. Rather it is a list that is meant to invoke some careful reflection on the part of the business owners or managers before jumping into the shark tank because every body else is. Each of the four considerations will be discussed below.
Customer provide funds for the merchandise which further constitutes to the cash inflow cycle for the transaction through appropriate mode of
What is the biggest fear people are facing while doing this business? How to get visitors on your website. There are a lot of free possibilities that can help you drive traffic to your website, such as blogs and forums (some forums have over 2,000 views per topic. Remember to include a link to your web page in signature when writting in forum. Anik was able to get his first 10,000 dollars online by using forums), use Facebook ads, social media, affiliate networks, and so on.
There are several trade specific financial methods, which are used to service trade. The common form is to issue a bill of exchange where the buyer gives the seller the right to draw his account on a specific date and amount. These bills are most often conditional to some form of duty to be made before the payment goes trough. Further is possible for the buyer to issue document against payment (D/P). This gives the buyer possibilities to retain payment until he receives the documents according to the sales contract. The seller retains the goods until he receives payment. The similar document against acceptance (D/A) also gives the buyer the possibility to retain credit from the bank on the behalf of the seller. The sellers bank is then in charge of collecting the payment. Th...
The future of economic competitiveness for most enterprises relies on entrance and active participation in the e-commerce market. An essential problem with e-commerce is that the controls and organization are different for each site. There is no standard way of building t...
From PayPal to Debit cards, from EFT to Credit cards, this modern world has been inundated with new ways of making business transactions. Instead of the conventional use of dollars and nickels, now there are electronic payment systems. These types of systems allow for better trust and acceptance between consumer and businesses. In the traditional way of buying a product, one would see a product in person, and pay for it with cash or credit. In e-commerce, the business uploads images of its products online and it enables its customers to shop it using any type of electronic payment system.
(1) Merchant Rate: The rate at which the foreign exchange dealing takes place between a bank and the merchant business in known as the ‘Merchant Rate’. Cash transaction or spot transaction is the contract for buying or selling foreign exchange, which is agreed and executed on the same day
The following are tips for when you are going through the actual process: Begin your marketing and branding efforts by devising your business name and tagline. Have a location decided upon, so that you can establish an address and phone number for your company. Open a bank account for your business or take other measures to handle your business finances, so that they are kept separate from your personal finances. Create a business logo that reflects the services your business provides.
Banking cards offer consumers more security, convenience, and control than any other payment method. The wide variety of cards available – including credit, debit and prepaid – offers enormous flexibility, as well. These cards provide 2 factor authentication for secure payments e.g secure PIN and OTP. RuPay, Visa, MasterCard are some of the example of card payment systems. Payment cards give people the power to purchase items in stores, on the Internet, through mail-order catalogues and over the telephone. They save both customers and merchants’ time and money, and thus enable them for ease of transaction.
According to the author, e-business is conducting business on the internet by not only buying and selling goods, but also servicing clients and collaborating with business partners by using all the human technologies.
At the very start, internet revolution was known as a world wide web that would change everything. In 1990s, the concept of "online business" was created, this business is known by various names such as dot-coms, e-biz etc. which made easier to start a business on internet and inexpensive as well. Whether it's a big or a small, local or international it can reach infront of the world very easily. Thousands of ventures have been made on internet for online business on the basis of brick and mortar. Online business is not different from any other venture. Same rules and principles are applied. First thing to start up a business is to create a business plan and think of how to make money. Some of the options which should be applied for an online business includes, sell products, sell advertising, sell information, sell services and to become a reseller. All of these options are complied together. For any virtual business an individual should always look for products with high margins, high demand and less competition either for physical or digital manner. However, many services are sold on internet such as web hosting, domain name registration, software applications and comparison of different products and services. Selling information is another basic option in an online business which is done in two forms, one is subscribing on a website where online articles are available for free and on the other hand e-books are popular and are free, they can be downloaded easily plus when the writing is done the cost of subscription is very low. Advertising on internet leads toward a lot of money though it's an expensive procedure, with a lot of traffic on a web site one can make money easily by joining any kind of ad network such as Google. By getting affiliated with another web site can also make a lot of money such as sending a buyer on another merchant's web page, like this one can get a percentage on per sale basis but first an individual needs to get expert in marketing for search engines.
So, it is important to make your business easily accessible through a website where you can put all the details about your business and the services and/or products you offer to your consumers.
E-commerce application is a platform where there is buying and selling of products and services which are done by businesses and consumers via an electronic medium, mostly without using any paper documents. “E-Commerce applications support transactions between businesses and their customers. They provide 24/7 customer support, allowing customers to order products, check orders and track shipping, review previous orders, reorder products, and manage their accounts.” (Auburn SeeWolf llc , 2009-2012)