The Advantages and Disadvantages of an Online Business.

Electronic commerce or e-commerce has completely revolutionized the standard concept of doing business by enabling a presence in |the worldwide market. Listed here are examples of the important advantages and disadvantages of electronic commerce.

Electronic commerce or in brief e-commerce, refers to business activities like selling and buying of services and products administered over electronic systems such as Internet and computer networks. The history of e-commerce dates back to 1970, when for the very first time, electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic fund transfer were introduced. Since then, a rapid growth of e-commerce has pervaded almost every other aspects of business just like supply chain management, transaction processing, and online marketing and inventory management.

Like every conventional business, electronic commerce can also be indicated via various compensation plus inherent drawbacks. Let's take a look at a few of these important compensation and drawbacks of electronic commerce.

Advantages

The best and an important advantage of e-commerce, is that it enables a company concern or individual to achieve |the worldwide market. It caters to the demands of both the national as well as the international market, as businesses activities are no longer restricted by geographical boundaries. Aided by the help of electronic commerce, even small enterprises can access the worldwide marketplace for selling and buying products and services. Even time restrictions are nonexistent while conducting businesses, as e-commerce empowers one to execute business transactions 24 hours a day and also on holidays and weekends. This in return significantly increases sales and profit.

Electronic commerce gives the purchasers the chance to check out cheaper and quality products. Using the help of e-commerce, consumers can easily research on a unique product and sometimes even discover the first manufacturer to buy an item at a less expensive price than that charged by the wholesaler. Shopping online is generally more convenient and time saving than conventional shopping. Besides these, people also bump into reviews posted by other customers, regarding the products purchased from a particular e-commerce site, that may help make purchasing decisions.

For business concerns, e-commerce significantly cuts down the associated fee tied to marketing, customer care, processing, and information storage and inventory management. It reduces the time period involved with business process re-engineering, customization of products to satisfy the demand of particular customers, increasing productivity and customer care services. Electronic commerce reduces the burden of infrastructure to conduct businesses and thereby raises the total amount of funds for} profitable investment. It also enables efficient customer care services. Alternatively, It collects and manages information associated with customer behavior, which in return helps develop and adopt an efficient marketing and promotional strategy.

Disadvantages

Electronic commerce can also be characterized by some technological and inherent limitations which have restricted the quantity of people using this revolutionary system. One important disadvantage of e-commerce is how the Internet has still not touched the lives of a great quantity of people, either as a result of ignorance or trust. Numerous people usually do not use the Internet for any kind of monetary transaction. Many people simply refuse to trust the authenticity of completely impersonal business transactions, as in the case of e-commerce. Many individuals have reservations regarding the necessity to disclose personal and personal information for security concerns. Often, the legitimacy and authenticity of various e-commerce sites have also been questioned.

Another limitation of e-commerce is that it isn't suitable for perishable commodities like food items. People opt to shop in |the traditional way than to try e-commerce for purchasing food products. So e-commerce is absolutely not suitable for such business sectors. The time period required for delivering physical products can be quite significant in case of e-commerce. Many phone calls and e-mails could be required till you obtain your desired products. However, returning the merchandise and obtaining a refund {could be more troublesome and time consuming than purchasing, in case if you aren't satisfied with a specific product.

Thus, on evaluating the varied pros and cons of electronic commerce, we are able to say that advantages of e-commerce have the possibility to outweigh the disadvantages. A suitable strategy to handle the technical issues and to develop up customers trust in the system, can change the current scenario and help e-commerce adapt to the changing needs of this world.