DRAWBACKS AND ADVANTAGES OF E-COMMERCE

Abstract
The Internet is now a flourishing industry. With the technology advancing at a fast rate, more and more people are open to computers and internet. Increasingly they are learning to utilize the Internet for their day to day needs. Here Ecommerce websites take a front seat, moving out to the millions of people searching for your kind of product or services online.In the last decade, many startup e-commerce companies have rapidly stolen market share from traditional retailers and service providers, pressuring these established. The Internet has created a new economic ecosystem, the e-commerce marketplace, and it has become the virtual main street of the world. Providing a quick and convenient way of exchanging goods and services both regionally and globally, e-commerce has boomedAt a macro level, overall economic activity ,total retail spending and change in consumer life style are in general are key drivers to the growth of e-commerce. At a micro level, for instance, rising oil prices and gasoline costs could benefit e-commerce players, e.g., it is more expensive driving to the offline retail store than shopping online. The recession beginning in 2008 has slowed e-commerce, but overall sales are still growing. US online retail sales grew 11% in Q1 2008 compared to a growth of 16.9% in Q1 2007. Ecommerce templates combine the look and feel of a Website template with the functionality of a complete ecommerce site with shopping cart software and much more. Owners want their stores to have a unique, attractive appearance. Web site templates designed to work with Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Go Live, or generic CSS come with many different looks and navigation schemes and can be customized for your site. E-commerce is the pre-eminent buzzword of the online business revolution. It captures the excitement and focus of this fast emerging market. But it is more than a slogan or glib party line. At its core it embodies a concept for doing business online. Electronic commerce is the paperless exchange of business information using electronic data interchange (EDI), e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, fax transmissions, and electronic funds transfer. It refers to Internet shopping, online stock and bond transactions, the downloading and selling of “soft merchandise” (software, documents, graphics, music, etc.), and business-to-business transactions. There are still many things that need to be done. one of those things is allowing templates for each part of the checkout page. You can do a lot of things in CSS and possibly hacking the module files but as we all know drupal developers prefer us not to hack module files. as ecommerce store owners we get pretty picky about how things look and work once we begin to understand why customers are not completing the checkout. Just as a brick-and-mortar
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The consumer market is huge and expanding. It is not only growing by sheer population growth but also because the improving economy is producing a growing class of people with disposable income. Furthermore this potential market is relatively untouched. It is only in the past few years that many consumer products have become available in India.. The potential is to get involved early in the e-commerce boom. As of now there are only a handful of companies involved. The potential is limited for the next year or two. There are some serious obstacles in the way. Few people are used to the idea of mail order. It may take one or two years for the trust to be established between the customer and the company. Also the middle class is 50-70 million but only about 1 million have direct access to the Internet, only 1 in 36 Indians have a phone and most don't have a credit card
2.DEFINITION OF ECOMMERCE.
2.1 Ecommerce is selling products online. Start with free or inexpensive shopping cart software and ecommerce
2.2 E-commerce, or electronic commerce is the conduct of a financial transactions by electronic means. With the huge success of commerce on the Internet, ecommerce usually refers to shopping at online stores on the World Wide Web, also known as ecommerce Web sites. Ecommerce can be business to business (B to B) or business to consumer (B to C). Putting it simply, Ecommerce or Electronic Commerce means buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet. Before making any decision in business, it is worth taking into consideration the benefits, the company would reap on implementation of the new strategy of Ecommerce.
2.3 .E-commerce means The conducting of commerce by companies, government agencies, and institutions with one another over the Internet A transaction conducted between two businesses over the Internet. For example, a publisher may sell books to a retailer, ship them to him/her, and receive payment online without meeting representatives from the retailer.
3. E-COMMERCE EXAMPLES
There is right to access the digital archived copy is an e-commerce service transaction. Examples of e-commerce transactions are:
• An individual purchases a book on the Internet.
• A government employee reserves a hotel room over the Internet.
• A business calls a toll free number and orders a computer using the seller's interactive telephone system.
• A business buys office supplies on-line or through an electronic auction.
• A retailer orders merchandise using an EDI network or a supplier's extranet.
• A manufacturing plant orders electronic components from another plant within the company using the company's intranet.
• An individual withdraws funds from an automatic teller machine (ATM).
• Not an e-commerce transaction because agreement to transfer ownership did not occur over computer-mediated network; neither telephone was computer-enabled.
• .In contrast, the purchase of a pre-packaged music CD from a computerized kiosk would not be considered an e-commerce transaction. If the kiosk was network linked, the digital music was downloaded, and the CD was mastered within the kiosk this would be an e-commerce transaction.
4. DRAWBACKS OF E-COMMERCE-
There are some disadvantages of e-commerce which you should be aware of before starting to trade online.
4.1 DRAWBACKS FOR END-USERS:
4.1.1). Need to be computer tech/ Internet savvy
4.1.2). Security problems: Privacy, Authorisation, Authentication, Integrity, Non-repudiation (PA2IN)
4.1.3) Bandwidth problem
4.1.4) Information overload
4.1.5). Web pages compatability and file format support
4.1.6.) Interoperability of e-commerce systems/ payment transfers
4.1.7). High shipping costs
4.1.8). Fraud and cybercrimes, e.g. identity thief
4.1.9). Currency exchange issue
4.1.10) Poor consumer protection - consumer must consent to use of electronic records of confidential information
4.1.11). Misleading factual compilations

4.2 DRAWBACKS FOR ORGANISATIONS:
4.2.1.Losing the bargaining power of products and/or services to buyers
4.2.2. Legal and Intellectual Property Rights issues
4.2.3. Webpages translation - 43% of Internet users are non-English speakers
4.2.4. Low barriers of entry for new competitors
4.2.5. Greater need for technical employees in organisation
4.2.6. Greater reliance on ASPs (Application Service Providers) and outsourcing
4.2.7. Theft of proprietary information by insiders and outsiders
4.2.8. Denial of service
4.2.9. Fast "Burn Rate" - the speed at which dot-coms spend investors' money.
4.2.10. High "Churn Rate" - The proportion of customers (typically subscribers) that no longer purchase a company's products in a time period.
Now the main drawbacks are discussed below:
*GLOBAL COMPETITION-Whilst e-commerce opens your doors to a global audience, it also gives you direct global competition. So your little niche product that might go down a storm at your local trade fair, may well be completely competitive when competing with thousands of exporters. . It is possible to visit a local music store and walk out with a compact disc, or a bookstore and leave with a book. E-commerce is often used to buy goods that are not available locally from businesses all over the world, meaning that physical goods need to be delivered, which takes time and costs money. In some cases there are ways around this, for example, with electronic files of the music or books being accessed across the Internet, but then these are not physical goods.
*THIRD PARTYVENTURE-Any e-commerce venture is also heavily dependent on third-party firms such as Google, your webmaster or who ever is in charge of managing your website and also your web host. If Google makes you drop a few rankings on one of your key pages, it could mean the difference between taking a salary and not - a risk outside of your control? Yes and no, good search engine optimization is key to doing well at Google.
*.ONLY ONLINE TRANSACTON-Online you don't have the presence you get offline - your customer can come and leave much easier than if they are actually in your shop. Visitors are merely a click away from leaving your site. See something they don't like - bam; they're gone.
*ADVANCE PAYMENT NOT SURE-Furthermore, you may find that you are too successful online. If you sell handmade rocking horses and your website gets picked up by say, a large regional newspaper and you suddenly find one thousand orders placed - what do you do? It's unlikely, but you simply must be prepared for anything in such a fluid environment as the internet. E-commerce is most often conducted using credit card facilities for payments, and as a result very small and very large transactions tend not to be conducted online. The size of transactions is also impacted by the economics of transporting physical goods. For example, any benefits or conveniences of buying a box of pens online from a US-based business tend to be eclipsed by the cost of having to pay for them to be delivered to you in Australia. The delivery costs also mean that buying individual items from a range of different overseas businesses is significantly more expensive than buying all of the goods from one overseas business because the goods can be packaged and shipped together.
*MANAGING RISK -Managing the risks, growing steadily and building relationships with your customers are the core to successful e-commerce. When you walk out of a shop with an item, it’s yours. You have it; you know what it is, where it is and how it looks. In some respects e-commerce purchases are made on trust. This is because, firstly, not having had physical access to the product, a purchase is made on an expectation of what that product is and its condition. Secondly, because supplying businesses can be conducted across the world, it can be uncertain whether or not they are legitimate businesses and are not just going to take your money. It’s pretty hard to knock on their door to complain or seek legal recourse! Thirdly, even if the item is sent, it is easy to start wondering whether or not it will ever arrive.
*.NOT USEFUL FOR PERISHBLE GOODS-Though specialised or refrigerated transport can be used, goods bought and sold via the Internet tend to be durable and non-perishable: they need to survive the trip from the supplier to the purchasing business or consumer. This shifts the bias for perishable and/or non-durable goods back towards traditional supply chain arrangements, or towards relatively more local e-commerce-based purchases, sales and distribution. In contrast, durable goods can be traded from almost anyone to almost anyone else, sparking competition for lower prices. In some cases this leads to intermediary people and businesses which are bypassed by consumers and by other businesses that are seeking to purchase more directly from manufacturers.
*.SENSORY INFORMATION -The Internet is an effective conduit for visual and auditory information: seeing pictures, hearing sounds and reading text. However it does not allow full scope for our senses: we can see pictures of the flowers, but not smell their fragrance; we can see pictures of a hammer, but not feel its weight or balance. Further, when we pick up and inspect something, we choose what we look at and how we look at it. This is not the case on the Internet. If we were looking at buying a car on the Internet, we would see the pictures the seller had chosen for us to see but not the things we might look for if we were able to see it in person. And, taking into account our other senses, we can’t test the car to hear the sound of the engine as it changes gears or sense the smell and feel of the leather seats. There are many ways in which the Internet does not convey the richness of experiences of the world. This lack of sensory information means that people are often much more comfortable buying via the Internet generic goods – things that they have seen or experienced before and about which there is little ambiguity, rather than unique or complex things.
* RETURN THE PURCHASED GOODS-. Returning goods online can be an area of difficulty. The uncertainties surrounding the initial payment and delivery of goods can be exacerbated in this process. Will the goods get back to their source? Who pays for the return postage? Will the refund be paid? Will I be left with nothing? How long will it take? Contrast this with the offline experience of returning goods to a shop. . E-commerce is an effective means for managing the transaction of known and established services, that is, things that are everyday. It is not suitable for dealing with the new or unexpected. For example, a transport company used to dealing with simple packages being asked if it can transport a hippopotamus, or a customer asking for a book order to be wrapped in blue and white polka dot paper with a bow. Such requests need human intervention to investigate and resolve
* PRIVECY AND SECURITY OF TRANSACTIONS-. Many issues arise – privacy of information, security of that information and payment details, whether or not payment details (eg credit card details) will be misused, identity theft, contract, and, whether we have one or not, what laws and legal jurisdiction apply.
* UNEXPECTED SERVICES_Although some human interaction can be facilitated via the web, e-commerce can not provide the richness of interaction provided by personal service. For most businesses, e-commerce methods provide the equivalent of an information-rich counter attendant rather than a salesperson. This also means that feedback about how people react to product and service offerings also tends to be more granular or perhaps lost using e-commerce approaches. If your only feedback is that people are (or are not) buying your products or services online, this is inadequate for evaluating how to change or improve your e-commerce strategies and/or product and service offerings. Successful business use of e-commerce typically involves strategies for gaining and applying customer feedback. This helps businesses to understand, anticipate and meet changing online customer needs and preferences, which is critical because of the comparatively rapid rate of ongoing Internet-based change.
Business and communication have become effortless over the past few years and things have changed for the better-E-commerce offered many advantages to companies and customers
5.ADVANTAGES OF E-COMMERCE-
5.1 ADVANTAGES FOR END-USERS:
5.1.1. Many choice and alternatives
5.1.2. Reduce search cost
5.1.3. Convenience
5.1.4. More complete information of the material facts about the product beforehand
5.1.5. Low switching costs between different sellers
5.2 ADVANTAGES FOR ORGANISATIONS:
5.2.1. Availability of business - 24x7x365
5.2..2. Cost reduction in operation
5.2.3. Reduce transaction costs
5.2.4. Improve customer service and communication
5.2.5. Competitive advantage
5.2.6. Increased sales from new online sales leads giving rise to increase revenue
5.2.7. Able to identify potential new partners easier
5.2.8. A faster opportunity for products/ service branding
5.2.9. Disintermediation - cutting out the middlemen
5.2.10. Faster possibility of stock output
These are some main advantages discussed below:
*.TIME CONSUMING-Time is one of the crucial factors in our lives now-a-days. A customer may find it difficult to visit your store physically every time. On the other hand, if you have your store put on view on the Internet, anyone can pay a visit to your online store at their convenient time. Your store shuts down at some point of time. But your e-store works 24X7 for you to bring in customers. Moreover, with all your product images and descriptions provided on your e-store, the customer gets a detailed idea about your product and you do not have to squander time briefing the same thing to each and every visitor to your store. It further saves time per transaction. Any sales executive will definitely take some time to illustrate your product to each customer. Your ecommerce website does the same task to hundreds and thousands of your likely customers at the same time. As all the information about your product are made available earlier to your customer's visit, much less time is required to convey the benefits of your product to them, thereby making it easier to close the deal. Thus, many number of transactions can take place within a day. Presenting your Product through Demonstrations and illustrations, depicts a clear and thorough idea about your product without the effort of hiring and training personnel to do so
*ALWAYS PROFIT-whether you have an existing business or launching a brand new business, whether the volume of your business is large or small, you can always generate profit by demonstrating your products or services online, thereby acquiring a large amount of viewer exposure. In a nutshell, just any selling/buying business can profit by the ecommerce method.
*. LESS EXPENSIVE-whether you have an existing business or launching a brand new business, whether the volume of your business is large or small, you can always generate profit by demonstrating your products or services online, thereby acquiring a large amount of viewer exposure.. Web advertisement expenses are also less compared to print or other audio-visual medias, like radio or TV.In an ecommerce website all that you need is a top-notch website design, that have a look and feel equally promising as your competitor, Search Engine Optimization to rank your website with your other competitors, and the annual hosting charges.Largely speaking, there are no major hindrance of Ecommerce websites.
* MORE VIEWERS-Your products showcased on your website, provides a huge exposure to the millions of visitors on the web. For example, if you have a computer showroom in a city, the visitors that you would get, will only be people from the city itself and possibly some from in and around the city.Once in a while there will be visitors from places outside your city. Thus your product exposure is limited. On the contrary, if your products are demonstrated on a website, it connects you to the plentifull people who access the internet and looking for similar product as that of yours.
5. SUGGESTION-
Regardless of what happens to the user, if they fall off the site or they go to Pay Pal and decide to cancel that payment option and then come back to the site or if they hit the back button on their browser while in the checkout process, the products need to remain in the cart - until they finish checkout. There are many forum post on eCommerce just on this subject alone, about sessions being dropped or the cart being empty due to the user being moved off the site from a nonsecure to a secure environment or vice versa.
6 CONCLUSION-
There are still many things that need to be done. one of those things is allowing templates for each part of the checkout page. You can do a lot of things in CSS and possibly hacking the module files but as we all know drupal developers prefer us not to hack module files. as ecommerce store owners we get pretty picky about how things look and work once we begin to understand why customers are not completing the checkout. Just as a brick-and-mortar store the owner will change things around the entrance or paint the walls a different color or tidy up the outside by adding flowers etc. just to make the whole experience good. It's the same thing for online shoppers. In all honesty, if a website that is not design wellone should not even bother creating an account. If he/she get into an online store and it created an account and he/she began going through the checkout and funny things start happening in the checkout There is precious opportunity to export in India by E-commerce. There are plenty of things that can be purchased and exported. One young man has sought out unusual coffee and spices and now has an e-commerce site where he sells these items through the mail. Perhaps it is not even necessary to purchase and warehouse anything. Partnering and establishing joint ventures with Indian companies would give you the opportunity to handle a variety of products without the risk and cost. You could simply create a website that sells the products. This is not much different than Amazon.com. Do you realize they don't publish books? They just sell other's. Often they have the book sent to the customer directly from the publisher eliminating the shipping and storage.
REFERENCES
1 “BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA”-IDEAS AND TEAPS
2 “E-COMMERCE DEVELOPMENT”
3 BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA
www.ecommercepartners.net
www.referenceforbusiness.com