E-commerce

E-commerce

1. What is e-commerce

   • E-commerce is the term used for buying or selling goods or services over the internet

2. Online shopping

   • To carry out online shopping you
     • Use the internet to browse website which sell what you want to buy
       • Search a website for your items
         • Add the items you want to buy to a shopping basket
           • Proceed to a ‘checkout’
             • Choose a method of payment
               • Enter the details of a credit or debit card
                 • Enter address information of where the package is to be delivered
   • Advantages to the customer
     • The range of goods available is very large
     • Saves time and expense travelling to shops
       • Home Entertainment
     • Can shop in a place to suit you
   • Disadvantages to the customer
     • May have to wait some time before the item arrives
     • You can only see a picture of the item
     • Food may no longer be fresh
     • Need to have a credit or debit card
     • May have high postage and packaging charges
   • Advantages to the business
     • May not have to pay for premises such as an office or shop
     • Can sell worldwide
   • Disadvantages to the business
     • Often have to rely on another company delivering the item/s
     • Precautions need to be in place to make sure the customer and payment details are private
     • Website needs to be up to date

3. Searching for products

   • Searching for items on the internet can be difficult. When you search you should use a careful choice of words
     • 'Holiday in Spain' will get 40,000,000 sites
     • 'Holidays in Spain' will get 300,000
     • 'Holidays in Spain 2011' will get 20,000
     • 'Cheap holidays in Spain 2011' will get 7 results

4. Online accounts

   • When booking online, you have to set up an account, providing a user name, password and an email address.
   • The password and email address has to be verified to make sure you have entered them correctly
   • The computer checks your first and second entry matches. This is know as verification

5. Booking online

   • Advantages to the customer
     • There is less chance of an error since you are filling in the data yourself
     • It is often cheaper to book online
     • A booking can be made at any time of day or from anywhere in the world
     • There is a fast response or even instant response to queries
     • There should be no double-booking
   • Disadvantages to the customer
     • You must have a credit or debit card or use a service like PayPal for most online bookings
     • Risk of hacking and losing your personal data
     • Not everyone has the facilities or the ability to book online
   • Advantages to the business
     • No high street shops are needed
     • It attracts customers that are not local
     • Customers can be emailed about their booking and future even
   • Disadvantages to the business
     • Initial costs of buying and installing the system will be high
     • Agencies may close because customers are buying online
     • People create their own tours so package holiday firms have to close through lack of customers
     • Staff have to be trained to do over the phone system
     • A well-designed website needs to be put in place
     • Needs a very reliable system
   • To carry out online booking you would
     • Use the internet to find the website you want
       • Search the website for your specification
         • Choose the date, number of people, number of rooms and so on
           • Proceed to check out
             • Choose payment method
               • Enter credit or debit card details
                 • Enter personal information