E-commerce: what it is and how to get the most of it to boost your business

If you still have some doubts what e-commerce is really all about, don’t worry. Even experts on technology matters don’t seem to come to terms with one another on a proper definition for such a new way of doing business.

However –to put it in simple words- we can tell you that e-commerce is a process whereby two or more parties can make a business transaction through a computer or an online network.

Stores of the future

At a world level, figures reflect the tremendous potentials ingrained in Internet business. According to International Data Corp. (IDC), a consulting company on information technology, over 100 million people around the globe have Internet connection, a number that’s expected to be up by 28 percent this year.

In Mexico, the amount of people going online is on the rise. While the year 1998 chalked up a major increase in the number of dot-com surfers by over one million people, that chunk is estimated to grow to 1.5 million by the end of 1999.

But, what does all this mean to your business? Put in a simple and plain way, we can tell you that counting on your own Web site to promote your product or service will turn your business into a virtual 24/7 store that could perfectly reach out to a clientele in the farthest nooks and crannies of the planet.

In the U.S., companies like Amazon.com –the world’s largest online bookstore- and Dell Computers have made e-commerce a dream come true. The former makes one million dollars a day all over the world, while Dell racks up daily profits for $10 million and counting. Michael Dell, the company’s founder, expects more than half his total sales for the year 2000 (some $16.8 billion in 1998) will be done through the Internet.

Though e-commerce is still a toddler in Mexico and there are no such cases in point as Amazon.com and Dell Computers, an increasingly large number of enterprises of all sizes are laying their hands on the world wide web to promote their products and services all around the world.

Where to start?

Doing e-commerce is not exactly a walk in the sun. It takes a process that ranges from handpicking what items or services you want to promote online to reshuffling your entire system of sales, distribution, defraying, marketing and customer service.

These are some the major steps you should take and keep very much in mind before cracking into the realm of e-commerce:

1. Define what kind of product you’re going to sell. The process of building and uploading a Web site hawking products and services online kicks off with the selection what products or services you want to sell, for not all of them can go off the shelf like virtual hot cakes.

Before founding Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos put together a long list of possible products and wound up picking books as he realized they could really make a killing. Chances for books to have craftsmanship mistakes are pretty slim; books already had a pre-established presence in the market, they were easy to stash away and feasible to all kinds of offers and promotions. To top it all off, customers in the book market are bound to scroll down a computer screen in order to have fast access to a database and buy just what they’re looking for.

At the same time, demographics is key. If you’re thinking to sell a product or service for the elderly, maybe the Internet is not a wise choice, at least not now because most nettizens are between 20 and 40 years old.

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