INDEX

1 Acknowledgement

2 Certificate

3 Introduction e-Commerce

4 Business application

5 Governmental regulation

6 Forms of E-Businesses

7
Global trends
8 Impact on markets and retailers

9 Distribution channels

10 E-commerce recommendation

11 E-commerce in India

12 18 Major Benefits of e-Commerce Business for Retailers &

Customers
13 Advantages and Disadvantages of Ecommerce

14 Questionnaire

15 Graphs

16 Bibliography
 e- Commerce

Introduction
E-commerce is a transaction of buying or selling online. Electronic
commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic
funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online
transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory
management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern
electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one
part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other
technologies such as e-mail. Typical e-commerce transactions include the
purchase of online books (such as Amazon) and music purchases (music
download in the form of digital distribution such as iTunes Store), and to a
less extent, customized/personalized online liquor store inventory services.

E-commerce businesses may also employ some or all of the followings:

 Online shopping web sites for retail sales direct to consumers

 Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process
third-party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales
 Business-to-business buying and selling;
 Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and
social media
 Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange
  Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax
(for example, with newsletters)
 Engaging in pretail for launching new products and services
 Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading
purposes.

Business application

An example of an automated online assistant on a merchandising website.

Some common applications related to electronic commerce are:

 Document automation in supply chain and logistics

 Domestic and international payment systems
 Enterprise content management
 Group buying
 Print on demand
 Automated online assistant
 Newsgroups
 Online shopping and order tracking
 Online banking
 Online office suites
  Shopping cart software
 Teleconferencing
 Electronic tickets
 Social networking
 Instant messaging
 Pretail
 Digital Wallet

Governmental regulation

In the United States, certain electronic commerce activities are regulated by

the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). These activities include but not limit
to the use of commercial e-mails, online advertising and consumer privacy.
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 establishes national standards for direct
marketing over e-mail. The Federal Trade Commission Act regulates all
forms of advertising, including online advertising, and states that
advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive.[30] Using its authority
under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive
practices, the FTC has brought a number of cases to enforce the promises
in corporate privacy statements, including promises about the security of
consumers' personal information.[31] As a result, any corporate privacy
policy related to e-commerce activity may be subject to enforcement by the
FTC.

In India, the Information Technology Act 2000 governs the basic

applicability of e-commerce.

Forms of E-Businesses
Contemporary electronic commerce can be classified into categories.

1. The first category is business based on types of goods sold (involves

everything from ordering "digital" content for immediate online
consumption, to ordering conventional goods and services, to "meta"
services to facilitate other types of electronic commerce).
2. The second category is based on the nature of the participant (B2B,
B2C, C2B and C2 C);[44]

On the institutional level, big corporations and financial institutions use the
internet to exchange financial data to facilitate domestic and international
business. Data integrity and security are pressing issues for electronic
commerce.

Aside from traditional e-commerce, the terms m-Commerce (mobile

commerce) as well (around 2013) t-Commerce[45] have also been used.

Global trends

For traditional businesses, one research stated that information technology

and cross-border e-commerce is a good opportunity for the rapid
development and growth of enterprises. Many companies have invested
enormous volume of investment in mobile applications. The DeLone and
McLean Model stated that three perspectives contribute to a successful e-
business: information system quality, service quality and users' satisfaction.
[62]
There is no limit of time and space, there are more opportunities to
reach out to customers around the world, and to cut down unnecessary
intermediate links, thereby reducing the cost price, and can benefit from
one on one large customer data analysis, to achieve a high degree of
personal customization strategic plan, in order to fully enhance the core
competitiveness of the products in company.

Impact on markets and retailers

E-commerce markets are growing at noticeable rates. The online market is

expected to grow 56% from 2015-2020. Traditional markets are only
expected 2% growth during the same time. Brick and mortar retailers are
struggling because of online retailer's ability to offer lower prices and
higher efficiency. Many larger retailers are able to maintain a presence
offline and online by linking physical and online offerings.

Impact on supply chain management

For a long time, companies had been troubled by the gap between the
benefits which supply chain technology has and the solutions to deliver
those benefits. However, the emergence of e-commerce has provided a more
practical and effective way of delivering the benefits of the new supply
chain technologies. E-commerce has the capability to integrate all inter-
company and intra-company functions, meaning that the three flows
(physical flow, financial flow and information flow) of the supply chain
could be also affected by e-commerce. The affections on physical flows
improved the way of product and inventory movement level for companies.
For the information flows, e-commerce optimised the capacity of
information processing than companies used to have, and for the financial
flows, e-commerce allows companies to have more efficient payment and
settlement solutions.

E-commerce helps create new job opportunities due to information related

services, software app and digital products. It also causes job losses. The
areas with the greatest predicted job-loss are retail, postal, and travel
agencies. The development of e-commerce will create jobs that require
highly-skilled workers to manage large amounts of information, costumer
demands, and production processes. In contrast, people with poor technical
skills cannot enjoy the wages welfare. On the other hand, because e-
commerce requires sufficient stocks that could be delivered to customers in
time, the warehouse becomes an important element. Warehouse needs more
staff to manage, supervise and organize, thus the condition of warehouse
environment will be concerned by employees.

Impact on customers

E-commerce brings convenience for customers as they do not have to leave

home and only need to browse website online, especially for buying the
products which are not sold in nearby shops. It could help customers buy
wider range of products and save customers’ time. Consumers also gain
power through online shopping. They are able to research products and
compare prices among retailers. Also, online shopping often provides sales
promotion or discounts code, thus it is more price effective for customers.
Moreover, e-commerce provides products’ detailed information; even the
in-store staff cannot offer such detailed explanation. Customers can also
review and track the order history online. However, e-commerce lacks
human interaction for customers, especially who prefer face-to-face
connection. Customers are also concerned with the security of online
transactions and tend to remain loyal to well-know retailers. [65] When the
customer regret the purchase of a product, it involves returning goods and
refunding process. This process is inconvenient as customers need to pack
and post the goods. If the products are expensive, large or fragile, it refers
to safety issues.

Social impact

Along with the e-commerce and its unique charm that has appeared
gradually, virtual enterprise, virtual bank, network marketing, online
shopping, payment and advertising, such this new vocabulary which is
unheard-of and now has become as familiar to people. This reflects that the
e-commerce has huge impact on the economy and society from the other
side.[69] For instance, B2B is a rapidly growing business in the world that
leads to lower cost and then improves the economic efficiency and also
bring along the growth of employment.[70]

To understand how the e-commerce has affected the society and economy,
this article will mention six issues below:

1. e-commerce has changed the relative importance of time, but as the

pillars of indicator of the country's economic state that the importance
of time should not be ignored.
2. e-commerce offers the consumer or enterprise various information they
need, making information into total transparency, and enterprises are
no longer is able to use the mode of space or advertisement to raise their
competitive edge.[71] Moreover, in theory, perfect competition between
the consumer sovereignty and industry will maximize social welfare. [72]
[73]

3. In fact, during the economic activity in the past, large enterprises

frequently had the advantage of information resources at the expense of
consumers. Nowadays, the transparent and real-time information
protects the rights of consumers, because the consumers can use the
internet to pick out the portfolio to their own benefit. The
competitiveness of enterprises will be much more obvious than before;
consequently, social welfare would be improved by the development of e-
commerce.
4. The new economy led by e-commerce changes humanistic spirit as well,
but above all, employee loyalty.[74] Due to the market with competition,
the employee's level of professionalism becomes crucial for enterprise in
the niche market. The enterprises must pay attention to how to build up
the enterprises inner culture and a set of interactive mechanisms and it
is the prime problem for them. Furthermore, though the mode of e-
commerce decreases the information cost and transaction cost, its
 development also makes human beings overly computer literate.
Emphasizing a more humanistic attitude to work is another project for
enterprise to development. Life is the root of all and technology is
merely an assistive tool to support quality of life.
5. Online merchants gather purchase activity and interests of their
customers. This information is being used by the online marketers to
promote relevant products and services. This creates an extra
convenience for online shoppers.
6. Online merchandise is searchable, which makes it more accessible to
shoppers. Many online retailers offer a review mechanism, which helps
shoppers decide on the product to purchase. This is another convenience
and a satisfaction improvement factor.

Distribution channels

E-commerce has grown in importance as companies have adopted pure-

click and brick-and-click channel systems. We can distinguish pure-click
and brick-and-click channel system adopted by companies.

 Pure-click or pure-play companies are those that have launched a

website without any previous existence as a firm.
 Bricks-and-clicks companies are those existing companies that have
added an online site for e-commerce.
 Click-to-brick online retailers that later open physical locations to
supplement their online efforts.

E-commerce recommendation
The contemporary e-commerce trend recommends companies to shift the
traditional business model where focus on “standardized products,
homogeneous market and long product life cycle” to the new business
model where focus on “varied and customized products”. E-commerce
requires the company to have the ability to satisfy multiple needs of
different customers and provide them with wider range of products. With
more choices of products, the information of products for customers to
select and meet their needs become crucial. In order to address the mass
customization principle to the company, the use of recommender system is
suggested. This system helps recommend the proper products to the
customers and helps customers make the decision during the purchasing
process. The recommender system could be operated through the top
sellers on the website, the demographics of customers or the consumers’
buying behavior.

However, there are 3 main ways of recommendations: recommending

products to customers directly, providing detailed products’ information
and showing other buyers’ opinions or critiques. It is benefit for consumer
experience without physical shopping. In general, recommender system is
used to contact customers online and assist finding the right products they
want effectively and directly.
E-commerce in India

India has an internet users base of about 450 million as of July 2017, 40% of the
population.[1].[2] Despite being the second-largest userbase in world, only behind China
(650 million, 48% of population), the penetration of e-commerce is low compared to
markets like the United States (266 million, 84%), or France (54 M, 81%), but is
growing at an unprecedented rate, adding around 6 million new entrants every month. [3]
The industry consensus is that growth is at an inflection point. [4]In India, cash on
delivery is the most preferred payment method, accumulating 75% of the e-retail
activities.[5] Demand for international consumer products (including long-tail items) is
growing much faster than in-country supply from authorised distributors and e-
commerce offerings.

In 2015, the largest e-commerce companies in India were Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon
India, and Paytm.

Market size and growth

India's e-commerce market was worth about $3.9 billion in 2009, it went up to $12.6
billion in 2013. In 2013, the e-retail segment was worth US$2.3 billion. About 70% of
India's e-commerce market is travel related.[7] According to Google India, there were 35
million online shoppers in India in 2014 Q1 and was expected to cross 100 million mark
by end of year 2016.[8] CAGR vis-à-vis a global growth rate of 8–10%. Electronics and
Apparel are the biggest categories in terms of sales. According to a study conducted by
the Internet and Mobile Association of India, the e-commerce sector is estimated to
reach Rs. 211,005 crore by December 2016. The study also stated that online travel
accounts for 61% of the e-commerce market.[9] According to a study done by Indian
Institute of eCommerce, by 2020 India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail
revenue out of which $35 billion will be through fashion e-commerce. Online apparel
sales are set to grow four times in coming years.[10]

India's retail market is estimated at $470 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $675
Bn by 2016 and $850 billion by 2020, – estimated CAGR of 10%..[11] According to
Forrester, the e-commerce market in India is set to grow the fastest within the Asia-
Pacific Region at a CAGR of over 57% between 2012–16.[12]

As per "India Goes Digital", [13] a report by Avendus Capital, the Indian e-commerce
market is estimated at Rs 28,500 Crore ($6.3 billion) for the year 2011. Online travel
constitutes a sizable portion (87%) of this market today. Online travel market in India
had a growth rate of 22% over the next 4 years and reach Rs 54,800 crore ($12.2 billion)
in size by 2015. Indian e-tailing industry is estimated at Rs 3,600 crore (US$800 million)
in 2011 and estimated to grow to Rs 53,000 crore ($11.8 billion) in 2015.

Overall e-commerce market had reached Rs 1,07,800 crores (US$24 billion) by the year
2015 with both online travel and e-tailing contributing equally. Another big segment in
e-commerce is mobile/DTH recharge with nearly 1 million transactions daily by
operator websites.[citation needed]

A new sector in e-commerce is online medicine, selling complementary and alternative

medicine or prescription medicine online. There are no dedicated online pharmacy laws
in India and it is permissible to sell prescription medicine online with a legitimate
license.[citation needed]

Online sales of luxury products like jewellery also increased over the years. Most of the
retail brands have also started entering into the market and they expect at least 20%
sales through online in next 2–3 years.

Closures
Though the sector has witnessed tremendous growth and is expected to grow, many e-
commerce ventures have faced tremendous pressure to ensure cash flows[15]. But it has
not worked out for all the e-commerce websites. Many of them like Dhingana,
IndiaPlaza.in, Rock.in, Seventy MM amongst others had to close down [16] or change
their business models to survive.

Infrastructure
There are many hosting companies working in India but most [citation needed] of them are not
suitable for eCommerce hosting purpose, because they are providing much less secure
and threat protected shared hosting. eCommerce demand highly secure, stable and
protected hosting.[citation needed] Trends are changing with some of eCommerce companies
starting to offer SaaS for hosting web stores with minimal one time costs.

India has got its own version of Cyber Monday known as Great Online Shopping
Festival which started in December 2012, when Google India partnered with e-
commerce companies including Flipkart, HomeShop18, Snapdeal, Indiatimes shopping
and Makemytrip. "Cyber Monday" is a term coined in the USA for the Monday coming
after Black Friday, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving Day.[18] Most recent GOSF
Great Online Shopping Festival was held during Dec 10 to 12, 2014.

In early June 2013, Amazon.com launched their Amazon India marketplace without
any marketing campaigns. In July 2014, Amazon had said it will invest $2 billion (Rs
12,000 crore) in India to expand business, after its largest Indian rival Flipkart
announced $1 billion in funding. In June 2016, Amazon agreed to invest another $3
billion to further pressure rivals Flipkart & Snapdeal[19] Amazon has also entered
grocery segment with its Kirana now in bangalore and is also planning to enter in
various other cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and faces stiff competition with
Indian startups.[20] A large proportion of traffic towards e-commerce sites is driven by
coupon sites.

Funding
Examples of venture capital firms having invested in e-commerce companies in India
are as follows: Flipkart.com raised about USD 2.3 billion. [22] On 10 July 2013, Flipkart
announced it had received $200 million from existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers,
Accel Partners, and ICONIQ Capital, and an additional $160 million from Dragoneer
Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Sofina, Vulcan Inc. and more
from Tiger Global.[23]

In February 2014, online fashion retailer Myntra.com raised $50 million from a group
of investors led by Premji Invest, the investment company floated by Azim Premji,
Chairman of Wipro. May 2014 also witnessed an acquisition of Myntra by Flipkart
reportedly for ₹2,000 crores.[24]

In September 2015, PepperTap raised $36 million from Snapdeal and others.

Niche retailers
The spread of e-commerce has led to the rise of several niche players who largely
specialize their products around a specific theme. As many as 1,06,086 websites are
registered daily and more than 25% are for niche businesses.[26]

During 2014, Royal Enfield sold 200 bikes of special series Online.[27]

Online apparel is one of the more popular verticals, which along with computers and
consumer electronics make up 42% of the total retail e-commerce sales. [28] Niche online
merchandising brands like Headbanger's Merch, Redwolf and No Nasties partner with
and even help sustain independent musicians. [29] Some established brands like Arvind
are now creating clothing lines just for the e-commerce markets. [30] Some of the bigger
online retailer like VoxPop Clothing have secured multiple rounds of funding, the last
round raising $1 million from Blume Ventures in 2014.[31]

As these niche businesses get popular, they are slowly getting acquired by the big
players. BabyOye was acquired by Mahindra Retail, part of the $17 billion Mahindra
Group.[32] Ekstop was acquired by the Godrej Group to complement their offline chain
of Nature's Basket stores.

18 Major Benefits of e-Commerce Business

for Retailers & Customers

With increasing the need of eCommerce industry, every businessman is looking to have an online
store where they can sell their range of products and services. One can get a lot of benefits by
opting for eCommerce as it delivers a comprehensive range of benefits to retailers and merchants.
Electronic Commerce is also known as e-commerce that consists of the purchasing and
selling of products or services through electronic systems like computer networks and
the Internet. In this modern world of technology, e-commerce is becoming a very
significant option for many businesses as there are lots of companies that are interested
in developing their online stores.

With increasing demand for online purchasing, more and more businesses are moving
to e-store from brick and mortar stores. In the US, more than 60% of people are
purchasing goods online from the comfort of their home and this figure is increasing
constantly. By considering this percentage, we can say that e-commerce is expanding
tremendously because of its complete range of benefits that any industry vertical can
enjoy.

Today, e-Commerce has revolutionized the way companies are doing business. Now,
consumers can purchase almost anything online 24*7 a day and get an ultimate
shopping experience. Before you opt for an e-Commerce business, have a look on its
comprehensive benefits that you can enjoy:

Convenience & Easiness:

For many people in the world, e-Commerce becomes one of the preferred ways of
shopping as they enjoy their online because of its easiness and convenience. They are
allowed to buy products or services from their home at any time of day or night.

The best thing about it is buying options that are quick, convenient and user-friendly
with the ability to transfer funds online. Because of its convenience, consumers can save
their lots of time as well as money by searching their products easily and making
purchasing online.

Offer Product Datasheets:

Consumers can also get description and details from an online product catalog. For
your customers, it is very much important to get information about the product no
matter whether the time of day and day of the week. Through information, your
customers and prospects are making decision to purchase your products or not.

Attract New Customers with Search Engine Visibility:

As we all know that physical retail is run by branding and relationships. But, online
retail is also driving by traffic that comes from search engines. For customers, it is not
very so common to follow a link in the search engine results and land up on an
ecommerce website that they never heard of.

Comprise Warranty Information:

No matter whether you are looking to choose including warranty information with
product descriptions and datasheets or providing it from within an ecommerce shopping
cart, you need to make sure that customers must be aware of important terms and
conditions that are associated with their purchase.

Decreasing cost of inventory Management:

With e-commerce business, the suppliers can decrease the cost of managing their
inventory of goods that they can automate the inventory management using web-based
management system. Indirectly, they can save their operational costs.

Keep Eye on Consumers’ Buying Habit:

The best thing is e-commerce retailers can easily keep a constant eye on consumers’
buying habits and interests to tailors their offer suit to consumers’ requirements. By
satisfying their needs constantly, you can improve your ongoing relationship with them
and build long-lasting relationships.

Competence:

For effective business transactions, e-commerce is an efficient and competence method.

Setting-up cost is extremely low as compare to expanding your business with more brick
and mortar locations. Very few licenses and permits are required to start-up an online
business than physical store. You can save your lots of money by using fewer employees
to perform operations like billing customers, managing inventory and more.

Allow Happy Customers to Sell Your Products:

With lots of customers’ reviews and product ratings, you can easily increase your sells as
new customers find that your products are good and effective. Make sure that you
mention your clients’ testimonials, reviews and product ratings as such things can help
your new customers to purchase your products.
Selling Products Across the World:

If you are running a physical store, it will be limited by the geographical area that you
can service, but with an e-Commerce website, you can sell your products and services
across the world. The entire world is your playground, where you can sell your complete
range of products without any geographical limits. Moreover, the remaining limitation
of geography has dissolved by mcommerce that is also known as mobile commerce.

Stay open 24*7/365:

One of the most important benefits that ecommerce merchants can enjoy is store
timings are now 24/7/365 as they can run e-commerce websites all the time. By this way,
they can increase their sales by boosting their number of orders. However, it is also
beneficial for customers as they can purchase products whenever they want no matter
whether it is early morning or mid-night.

Economy:

Now, you don’t have to invest your money in the physical store, insurance or
infrastructure as all you need is a wonderful idea, unique products and well-designed
website to reach your precious customers to sell your products and services. We can say
that this makes an e-commerce a lot more economical and reasonable.

Boost Brand Awareness:

As like e-commerce business can help B2B organizations to get new customers, so it will
be helpful for e-commerce businesses to boost their brand awareness in the market.
Developing pages that can be indexed by search engines crawlers is one of the best ways
to enhance your website’ search engine optimization and enhance the target audience on
your site.

Decrease Costs:

One of the most positive things about eCommerce is that you can decrease the costs of
your business. Below are some of the costs that you can reduce by opting for
ecommerce:

 Advertising & Marketing Cost: If you opt for ecommerce, you don’t have to spend your
money on advertising and marketing. However, organic search engine traffic, social media
traffic and pay-per-click are some of the advertising channels that are cost-effective.
 Personnel: A complete automation of check-out, billing, inventory management, payments
and other type of operational costs lower the total number of employees that you require
to run your ecommerce business.

 Eliminate Travel Cost: Now, customers do not have to travel long distances to reach their
desired stores as ecommerce allows them to visit the e-store anytime without traveling.
With few mouse clicks, customers can make their purchase and have wonderful shopping
experience.
Offer Huge Information:

One of the best benefits of ecommerce for customers is they can get huge information
that is not possible in a physical store. We all know that it is quite difficult to equip
employees to respond to customers who are looking for information on different
product lines.

But ecommerce websites offer additional information to their customers without any
hassle. All the given information is provided by vendors so that their customers find it
easy to purchase products with information.

Analytics:

We can say that business 2 business offers an excellent platform to organizations to

launch their complete range of analytics campaign. Through ecommerce, organizations
can easily calculate and evaluate sales effectiveness, customer effectiveness, marketing
campaigns, product mix, customer engagement and more.

Expand Market for Niche Products:

It is difficult for buyers and sellers to find each other in the physical world, but it
becomes very easy for them with the inception of e-store. Customers can search their
required products on the web and can purchase it from any corner of the world. No
matter what kind of product customers are looking, they can find all types of products
without any hassle.

Scalability:

With effective ecommerce solution, you and your organization grow and scale easily to
meet market demand as well as customer requirements by introducing different sales
channels and reaching market segments.

Ability of Multi-site:

With ecommerce platform, it becomes easy for businesses to launch channel specific and
particular brand ecommerce website. This ability enables you to provide co-branded
websites for your specific customers and allows for websites catering to specific
international spectators.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Ecommerce

E-commerce, or the act of selling goods or services online as opposed to selling at brick
and mortar establishments, has reshaped the modern marketplace in recent years, but
this new form of trade comes with its own sets of advantages and disadvantages over
traditional methods.

It's important, then, for businesses to look beyond the hype and develop their own
perspectives on the true value of e-commerce—to business and to consumers—because
interestingly, there are many advantages for consumers that might actually be a
disadvantage for e-commerce businesses.

Among the top advantages for starting an e-commerce business are eliminating
geographical limitations, gaining new customers with search engine visibility, lower
costs for maintenance and rent, and higher capacity for goods and deliveries while the
core disadvantages to starting an e-commerce business include losing the personal touch
of physical retailers, delaying goods or services deliveries, and limiting availability of
merchandise as some goods cannot be sold online.

Explore the following article to discover whether or not venturing into e-commerce is
right for your business.

1 Pros for E-Commerce Over Physical Retailers

The Internet might be the single most important facet of modern society, governing
everything from political discourse and higher education to the way we conduct
ourselves and our businesses. It's no wonder, then, that switching your business to an e-
commerce model would come with a huge amount of advantages.
On top of eliminating the need for long lines at physical stores, e-commerce sites allow
people who are not situated in major urban areas access to stores located remotely. E-
commerce, as a result, opens new markets for your business, allowing you to develop a
new business model geared toward your expanding consumer base, especially one that
relies on good e-commerce Search Engine Optimization to drive more free traffic to the
site through consumers' use of search engines.

Since you also eliminate the need for a physical store, your business can save money on
rent and upkeep like utilities and maintenance. Additionally, because there is no limit to
the number of items that can be sold online, your store's stock can expand exponentially
by moving to an e-commerce model, and the store can remain open 24/7 so consumers
can browse your wares at their leisure.

Thanks to e-commerce, consumers can also purchase digital goods like music albums,
videos, or books instantaneously, and stores can now sell unlimited copies of these
digital items. This also cuts down on things like employee payroll expenses because you
no longer need to have dozens of employees a week on-site to sell albums, books, or
movies.

E-commerce also allows your business to scale up easier than physical retailers as they
are not bound by physical limitations like inventory storage space. Of course, logistics
gets tougher as a business grows, but one can scale up its logistics, too, with the choice of
the right third-party logistics provider.

Since the e-commerce merchant captures contact information in the form of email,
sending out automated and customized emails is quite easy. Additionally, these
businesses and metrics allow for superior store customization by using cookies and
other methods of monitoring a consumer's behavior.

Because the entire supply chain can be interlinked with business to business e-
commerce systems, procurement becomes faster, transparent, and cheaper, and there's
no need to handle currency notes or cash, which further cuts down on costs and
opportunities for accounting errors.

Finally, e-commerce allows your business to track logistics, which is key to a successful
e-commerce company, as well as sell low-volume goods. Although conventional retail
focuses on stocking fast-moving goods, the economics of e-commerce permits slow-
moving and even obsolete products to be included in the catalog.

2 Cons for E-Commerce Over Brick and Mortar Stores

While it may appear that e-commerce is the perfect choice to solve your business
problems, there are still a number of disadvantages to switching from selling at a
physical location to using online retail.

Many consumers still prefer visiting brick and mortar shops because of their personal
touch and the relationship customers get to develop with a retail location. Additionally,
many customers want to experience the product before purchase, especially when it
comes to clothing, but e-commerce eliminates that luxury.
Security and credit card fraud are also huge risks when dealing with online shopping—
consumers run the risk of identity fraud and other hazards as their personal details are
captured by e-commerce businesses while businesses run the risk of phishing attacks
and other forms of security fraud; both can suffer from credit card fraud.

As a result, consumers also fear their inability to identify scams and scammers, meaning
that your website has to be extraordinarily protected and verified for most consumers to
trust using it.

If shopping is about instant gratification, then consumers are left empty-handed for
some time after making a purchase on an e-commerce website as they often have to
either pay more for expedited shipping or wait out several days while the postal service
does its job. Additionally, if they are unsatisfied with their order, many e-commerce
retailers have to issue a refund, which requires your business to expand its reverse
logistics functions, meaning the shipping back of goods and refunding of costs.

Speaking of costs, there's a multiplicity of regulations and taxation that comes with
opening an e-commerce shop, and regulators are still not clear about the tax
implications of e-commerce transactions, which is especially true when the seller and
buyer are located in different territories.

3 Good for Consumers, Bad for Businesses

Some concerns don't necessarily fit in just the pro's or con's side of the argument—
these unique issues present an advantage to shoppers and consumers while increasing
difficulty for businesses, meaning that while more customers might be coming to the
shop, the business is suffering in another way.

While it's easier for consumers to compare prices because of several shopping search
engines and websites, sellers might find it too restrictive to their business revenues as
many get filtered out of the consumer's consideration set.

Though there is nothing about e-commerce that makes it intrinsically oriented to

discounts, the way online business has evolved has led to lowered prices online, which
acts as an advantage for the buyer, but a disadvantage for the seller.

The consumer experiences the convenience of having goods home-delivered, but the
logistics involved with delivering each individual item adds substantial strain to the e-
commerce business operation, making it great for profits and customer retention but
terrible for logistics and management.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Websites:

 www.wikipedia.com
 www.ncert.com
 www.cbse.nic.in
 www.icbse.com
 Google.com