E-commerce: Advantages and Disadvantages of Building an Online Presence

This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of building an e-commerce presence. It covers the different market segments of e-commerce and how it can be utilized for various products and services. It also talks about the impact of e-commerce on supply chain management and payment systems.

WEEK 3
BUILDING AN E-COMMERCE PRESENCE
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E-commerce is a part of a business process or a business model that is used by an
individual or firm to perform business over the internet. The ecommerce presence works in
all the market segments of a business such as consumer to business. Consumer to consumer,
business to consumer and business to business. The ecommerce presence can be perceived as
an advanced type of mail order that is purchased with the help of a catalogue (Chiu et al.
2014). The ecommerce presence can be utilized to perform almost anything such as plane
tickers, financial services, electronic goods and books. There are several advantages to the
ecommerce presence such as selection and convenience (Laudon & Traver, 2013). The
convenience aspect of the ecommerce presence comes from the fact that the technology can
be accessed throughout the day at any time depending on the convenience of the consumers.
The ecommerce presence also gives the consumers with a wide variety of goods to select
from which the brick and mortar shops cannot provide with. The ecommerce presence has its
fair share of disadvantages as well. The ecommerce presence falls short in proper customer
service. In their other counterparts, the consumers get a choice of asking the employees
which product will be more suitable for them but in ecommerce platform gets difficult with
the introduction of chat features. Moreover, the products that are bought online cannot be
checked online. In other words, the ecommerce presence cannot be seen or touched in real
time which brings the chance of the consumer getting dissatisfied. The applications of the
ecommerce presence range from web services, FTPs or File transfer protocols, shopping
carts, online catalogues and emails. Some organizations make use of targeted advertisements,
social media marketing and digital coupons to engage with their customers directly. The
technology is growing at a tremendous rate. Within 2015-2020 the technology to expected to
expand over 55% (Huang, & Benyoucef, 2013). This is a major disadvantage for the brick
and mortar stores which are facing a huge competition from this new sector and seeks a
growth rate of just 2%. The ecommerce presence allows individuals to buy products from

anywhere anytime despite of their geographical locations. Moreover, the shelf space and
online speed delivery system is far more superior to the traditional modes of business. Most
of the time, the ecommerce retailer presence offers the products and services at a cheaper
price and with high efficiency rates. The inter company and intra company functions can all
be integrated with the help of the ecommerce presence. It directly has an effect on the supply
chain management system of the company. This is because the ecommerce presence has the
capability to change the movement level of the inventories and product movement for
companies. Due to the advancement in the information system, the ecommerce presence also
has the added advantage of providing more efficient settlement solutions and payment
systems. The ecommerce presence also allows an organization to identify the gaps that are
present in the supply chain management system of the organization. Also, the ecommerce
presence allows the organization to bridge the gap between the consumers and the suppliers
by allowing the organization to implement several ERP systems (Lu, Fan & Zhou, 2016). To
conclude the ecommerce presence has allows the organizations to maintain their distribution
systems, improve their market position and their market presence.

References
Chiu, C. M., Wang, E. T., Fang, Y. H., & Huang, H. Y. (2014). Understanding customers'
repeat purchase intentions in B2C e‐commerce: the roles of utilitarian value, hedonic
value and perceived risk. Information Systems Journal, 24(1), 85-114.
Huang, Z., & Benyoucef, M. (2013). From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at
design features. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), 246-259.
Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2013). E-commerce. Pearson.
Lu, B., Fan, W., & Zhou, M. (2016). Social presence, trust, and social commerce purchase
intention: An empirical research. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, 225-237.