We start with a piece of information to set the ball rolling in a field that promises to get the cash registers ringing loud & clear. And fast! By 2026, the size of the ecommerce business is expected to be in the region of USD 200 billion! And India as its early and most promising adherent shall truly be the Holy Grail of Earning which everyone is looking up to, to cut costs and get profits in unheard-of sums!
For a start, what exactly is eCommerce? To put it simply, ecommerce is the ability to trade in (primarily buy and sell) goods (and to an extent, even services) using the digital cyber medium for getting clients, finding and gauging their needs, completing their buying/ selling orders, accepting payments and also dealing with providing information online till the time that the product being procured doesn’t reach them. Where the product gets rejected for any reason, even the reverse logistics from buyer’s end back to the supplier/ producer has elements of the ecommerce backbone to make things easier and faster.
These days ecommerce is usually synonymous with B2B & B2C entities like those who provide goods and services with Amazon, Flipkart and ebay being some of the more known names. There are others which cater to businesses world like Alibaba, Amazon, GE. And all of these have one thing in common! All of them use some of the best multi-channel ecommerce solutions which makes things easy for both buyers and sellers by creating tech products which act as the most perfect intermediaries.
This trend of ecommerce companies and multi-channel ecommerce solutions is something which is here to stay because it gives everyone enormous freedom from human subjectivity, inefficiency and does away with this concept that “size matters”.
As for the types of e-commerce set-ups, the following are its current avatars, and invariably the thing which makes them super-efficient and user-friendly is the presence of multi-channel ecommerce solutions made by the best companies in the world.
B2B businesses
B2C businesses
Affiliate marketing business
Google Adwords marketing
Online auction selling
Web marketing
On the question of how does an eCommerce business conduct its business, from the trade, it boils down to:
– Dividing the business into functions and activities! In reality, it isn’t markedly different from that in the normal brick-and-mortar setup
– The divided model of the business invariably backed by an ecommerce software provider’s multi-channel ecommerce solution shall have three main parts, namely
* Order receipt and processing: The first and essentially the starting point of any ecommerce transaction, it could be web or app-based order receipt system. Amazon could be your perfect example with it fabulous app and interface. In this part, the e-commerce company exhibits all the products of each category on the basis of usual filters which consumers apply while coming to a decision on buying a product, which could include product features, terms of warranties, prices to name a few. Once the decision is made by the consumer by entering relevant details, the process goes to the next step. A few places where ecommerce companies differ from brick & mortar is that they show all details of the product, what other consumers have to say, additional options, and payment terms which could be payment in advance or payment on receipt. With the order undergoing processing, the multi-channel ecommerce solution takes the order to the next process, which is
* Order processing: Taking the example of Amazon, where once the order has been confirmed in every respect, it goes to the supplier who could be Amazon itself or any of the other suppliers situated anywhere in India. The ordered product is pulled off the shelf, packed the right way in the right quantity with the right labelling and packing, and is ready for the third step, which is movement or logistics.
* Shipping: Once the ordered product is ready in every respect, it’s time to call the logistics company to pick up the package and deliver it to the buyer. This is one aspect that needs to be mapped through the multi- channel ecommerce solution package rather carefully as it speaks about being accountable to a customer till the very end, and is NOT the preserve exclusively of the logistics company.
On how to establish an ecommerce company, ideally there are no hard-and-fast rules. Till the time there is no brick-and-mortar presence, and from order entry till final delivery if everything takes place online through ecommerce software providers, it can be called the case of ecommerce. That being the case, most ecommerce presence come about by either of two ways:
1. Have your own ecommerce-enabled website, or
2. Have a presence thru a dedicated ecommerce website including (but not limited to) Amazon
In the first option, one has loads of independence where it comes to adding features, products, look & feel and the world. But where you lose out is when you have to di everything on your own, right from marketing, preparing and updating the website to forming payment gateways, and also getting logistics support. Agreed that assistance is available in the market from digital marketing firms and ecommerce software providers but for a small player, this task could be quite onerous.
The second option i.e., of going thru a dedicated ecommerce website is followed by most ecommerce sellers. This too has its own plusses and minuses. On the plus side, you pay for the right service package, and rest assured that the ecommerce company takes care of everything right from promotion to delivery. The minus is that competition is intense. Unless the product commands a brand value, there may be many like it, and in the absence of visibility, a promising brand may never be able to make the cut.
Advantages and otherwise of an e-commerce business:
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| – No need to pay costly rentals for places to showcase products | – Products sometimes need physical display for which ecommerce does not help |
| – Product get visibility online 24 x 7 all over the world | – Products may have a very small & specialized customers base or could be region-specific in which case a presence all over the world may not be useful |
| – Ability to make a fair and easy comparison of prices and product features | – For specialized products with very, very few makers, this may be wholly unnecessary |
| – Sellers can hold special sales-related features such as festive discounts, clearance sale etc online for clients from everywhere. | – |
| – Clients’ views can be taken into account while purchasing products. For sellers, such views can go a long way in making changes to products | – |
| – Ecommerce information coupled with AI & Big Data can go a long way in designing newer products, features and services | – |
| – Ecommerce information coupled with AI & Big Data can help retailers fine-tune their sales strategies to attract the exact clientele | – |
| – Cost of starting a new enterprise has fallen drastically. | – |