The hottest game on the Internet right now is e-Commerce, which by now has a lot of players and few winners. One of the biggest challenges in developing a successful online storefront is choosing the right software solution for your site, which can make the difference between making money and losing money on the Web.
An electronic commerce business is no less demanding than any other type of business operation, but it is also quite different. Instead of the traditional brick and mortar storefront, everything happens in the form of bits and bytes flowing over the Internet and what makes it tick is e-Commerce software; to engage in pages that can inform customers, display products, conduct purchase transactions, and provide feedback and results. The most critical decision is determining which e-Commerce software a company should use to do all of this. One complex solution is to develop your own customized software. This requires the work of many specialists in web and programming languages (HTML, Java, etc.) Most companies would fare better by investing in a commercial software solution provider.
There are now dozens of companies offering virtual storefronts and shopping carts on secure servers. The payment part can be handle by products from companies such as IBM and Microsoft and specialist companies such as I CAT and vision factory. In some cases you do not even have to buy the software but simply rent a web site and programming from a web host. However the first decision to be taken is of deciding what kind of e-commerce you want-consumer, business to business. or both. the consumer side of e-commerce is retail trade, where companies offer products for immediate purchase. (This distinguishes e-commerce from sites that merely promote products) the business-to-business side of e-commerce e-commerce can involve both wholesale purchasing and electronic data transfers (payments, invoices) between business partners. not all e-commerce software can do both, not without additional programming and expert configuration.
Indian businesses trying to get into e-Commerce maybe frustrated, since in India RBI does allow credit card information to be taken over the internet without a legally binding signature. The Indian government now recognizes digital signature for customer verification over the Internet e-Commerce growth in India has been slow after the dot com bust driven by the Stock Markets. | |
