A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence.
Advantages
There are many advantages of e-commerce for example:
- It opens the market to customers nationally and internationally
- It enables smaller companies to compete with larger companies
- It reduces in staffing and/or high street stores thereby reducing costs
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It provides the option to offer 24 hour shopping at minimum additional cost
Disadvantages
There are some disadvantages of e-commerce such as:
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Stiffer competition - businesses once competing with the shop in the next town now find themselves competing on a global scale.
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Staff reductions - with increased competition, local companies may have to reduce their work force.
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Cost of restructuring - the move to e-commerce may not be a smooth one and will certainly require a degree of investment.
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Customer concerns - if high street stores are closed in an effort to save money, customers who prefer to shop on the high street may not be comfortable buying online so may go elsewhere.
Convenience
E-commerce is very convenient as people can buy goods online almost anywhere and get them delivered straight to their house. E-commerce has also made shopping so much more convenient as people don’t even need to leave their house. It is more convenient as there is no need to go out to shops and get stuck in traffic when people can just order goods online.
Choices
E-commerce websites can now give people more choices of products, much more than if you visit a store and they might be out of stock. With the variety of websites, people can easily order a specific product of their choice.
Cost
When selling products there are set-up and maintenance costs. Firstly, a domain needs to be registered which costs £5 to £20. Next is hosting of a site, which for the average e-commerce store of several hundred products, will cost around £100 a year.
Flexibility
E-commerce has allowed both retailers and customers to increase flexibility. For retailers it has allowed access to more customers without having to invest in a new store at a location first and also it has allowed them to have greater flexibility.
For consumers it has allowed people to shop around for the best price and not suffer from the threat of overpriced goods at your local store. It also allows a consumer to remove the hassle of going to the shops.
