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E-Commerce - Disadvantages

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The disadvantages of e-commerce can be broadly classified into two major categories − Technical disadvantages Non-Technical disadvantages Technical Disadvantages There can be lack of system security, reliability or standards owing to poor implementation of e-commerce. The software development industry is still evolving and keeps changing rapidly. In many countries, network bandwidth might cause an issue. Special types of web servers or other software might be required by the vendor, setting the e-commerce environment apart from network servers. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to integrate an e-commerce software or website with existing applications or databases. There could be software/hardware compatibility issues, as some e-commerce software may be incompatible with some operating system or any other component. Non-Technical Disadvantages Initial cost  − The cost of creating/building an e-commerce application in-house may be very high. There could be
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E-Commerce - Advantages

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E-Commerce advantages can be broadly classified in three major categories − Advantages to Organizations Advantages to Consumers Advantages to Society Advantages to Organizations Using e-commerce, organizations can expand their market to national and international markets with minimum capital investment. An organization can easily locate more customers, best suppliers, and suitable business partners across the globe. E-commerce helps organizations to reduce the cost to create process, distribute, retrieve and manage the paper based information by digitizing the information. E-commerce improves the brand image of the company. E-commerce helps organization to provide better customer services. E-commerce helps to simplify the business processes and makes them faster and efficient. E-commerce reduces the paper work. E-commerce increases the productivity of organizations. It supports "pull" type supply management. In "pull" type supply manag
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E-Commerce - EDI

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EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange. EDI is an electronic way of transferring business documents in an organization internally, between its various departments or externally with suppliers, customers, or any subsidiaries. In EDI, paper documents are replaced with electronic documents such as word documents, spreadsheets, etc. EDI Documents Following are the few important documents used in EDI − Invoices Purchase orders Shipping Requests Acknowledgement Business Correspondence letters Financial information letters Steps in an EDI System Following are the steps in an EDI System. A program generates a file that contains the processed document. The document is converted into an agreed standard format. The file containing the document is sent electronically on the network. The trading partner receives the file. An acknowledgement document is generated and sent to the originating organization. Advantages of an EDI System Following are the advant
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E-Commerce - B2C Model

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In B2C model, a business website is a place where all the transactions take place directly between a business organization and a consumer. In the B2C model, a consumer goes to the website, selects a catalog, orders the catalog, and an email is sent to the business organization. After receiving the order, goods are dispatched to the customer. Following are the key features of the B2C model − Heavy advertising required to attract customers. High investments in terms of hardware/software. Support or good customer care service. Consumer Shopping Procedure Following are the steps used in B2C e-commerce − A consumer − determines the requirement. searches available items on the website meeting the requirment. compares similar items for price, delivery date or any other terms. places the order. pays the bill. receives the delivered item and review/inspect them. consults the vendor to get after service support or returns the product if not satisfied with the delivered pr
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E-Commerce - B2B Model

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A website following the B2B business model sells its products to an intermediate buyer who then sells the products to the final customer. As an example, a wholesaler places an order from a company's website and after receiving the consignment, it sells the endproduct to the final customer who comes to buy the product at the wholesaler's retail outlet. B2B identifies both the seller as well as the buyer as business entities. B2B covers a large number of applications, which enables business to form relationships with their distributors, re-sellers, suppliers, etc. Following are the leading items in B2B eCommerce. Electronics Shipping and Warehousing Motor Vehicles Petrochemicals Paper Office products Food Agriculture Key Technologies Following are the key technologies used in B2B e-commerce − Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)  − EDI is an inter-organizational exchange of business documents in a structured and machine processable format. Internet  − Intern
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E-Commerce - Security Systems

Security is an essential part of any transaction that takes place over the internet. Customers will lose his/her faith in e-business if its security is compromised. Following are the essential requirements for safe e-payments/transactions − Confidentiality  − Information should not be accessible to an unauthorized person. It should not be intercepted during the transmission. Integrity  − Information should not be altered during its transmission over the network. Availability  − Information should be available wherever and whenever required within a time limit specified. Authenticity  − There should be a mechanism to authenticate a user before giving him/her an access to the required information. Non-Repudiability  − It is the protection against the denial of order or denial of payment. Once a sender sends a message, the sender should not be able to deny sending the message. Similarly, the recipient of message should not be able to deny the receipt. Encryption  − Inf
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E-Commerce - Payment Systems

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E-commerce sites use electronic payment, where electronic payment refers to paperless monetary transactions. Electronic payment has revolutionized the business processing by reducing the paperwork, transaction costs, and labor cost. Being user friendly and less time-consuming than manual processing, it helps business organization to expand its market reach/expansion. Listed below are some of the modes of electronic payments − Credit Card Debit Card Smart Card E-Money Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) Credit Card Payment using credit card is one of most common mode of electronic payment. Credit card is small plastic card with a unique number attached with an account. It has also a magnetic strip embedded in it which is used to read credit card via card readers. When a customer purchases a product via credit card, credit card issuer bank pays on behalf of the customer and customer has a certain time period after which he/she can pay the credit card bill. It is usually credi
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