Enabling Business – to – Consumer Electronic Commerce
In this modern and sophisticated era, everything can evolve really quick. For example, E-Commerce. E-Commerce is the exchange of goods, services, and money among firms, between firms and their customers, and between customers, supported by communication technologies and, in particular, the Internet. There are many types of E-Commerce, Business – to – Consumer (B2C), Business – to – Business (B2B), Customer – to – Business (C2B), Customer – to – Customer (C2C). Now the since the E-Commerce has evolved there are Government – to – Citizen (G2C), Government – to – Business (G2B), and the last is Government – to – Government (G2G). This happened because Governments use e-government to increase efficiency and effectiveness, much like businesses do. By reducing paperwork and allowing for the electronic dissemination of information and the automated processing of transactions, governments can significantly reduce operating costs while increasing services. Examples of this might include the electronic filing of income tax returns, the online filing of business license applications, or the ability to share data electronically between different law enforcement agencies.
Powerful Web technologies have given rise to a global platform where firms from across the world can effectively compete for customers and gain access to new markets. Web sites that are linked to corporate databases provide real-time access to personalized information. That’s why there are few types of E-Commerce Strategies. One of them is e-tailing. The benefits of e-tailing as E-Commerce strategy is that when companies are selling online, they can take advantage of the elimination of the retail market space, selling a much wider variety of products, targeting unique market segments on a global basis, and undercutting competitors’ pricing.
This facilitates all stages of a transaction, allowing companies to conduct business online without human assistance, greatly reducing transaction costs while enhancing operational efficiency. This are the capabilities of e-tailing:
- Mass Customization
Firms can tailor their products and services to meet a customer’s particular needs. One of the example of Mass Customization is where the customer can create their own style of product like design your own shirt.
- Disintermediation
Cutting out the “middleman” and reaching customers more directly and efficiently
- Group Buying
If many people agree to purchase the product or service, they get significant discounts
There are challenges to e-tailing, especially for certain product and service types. Often, trust becomes an issue due to the customer’s inability to adequately experience the capabilities and characteristics of a product prior to purchase, as well as due to uncertainties surrounding product delivery and returns.
In e-commerce transactions, there is no imprint of the physical card and no cardholder signature, so online merchants have to be especially careful when deciding whether or not to make a transaction.
Online merchants often use automated fraud screening services that provide the merchants with a risk score based on a number of variables such as match between shipping address, billing address, and phone number; the time of the order and the customer’s time zone; transaction volume; and the customer’s IP address and its geographic location.
