Drop Shipping Is Ecommerce Snake Oil
Drop shipping is not for everyone. Even though it is pitched as a cure for everything from starting up withoutmoney to being able to sell without investing in inventory, it does not cure the main problems that want to be drop shippers have.
Want...
Increasing Your Conversion Rates: 50 Tips For Ecommerce Sites
You can convert More of Your Traffic into sales without having to spend a lot of money. There are hundreds of ways to improve your conversion rate and the persuasiveness/stickiness of your website, many of which can be done very quickly and most...
Integrating Microsoft Great Plains Accounting/ERP: RMS, CRM, eCommerce, Lotus Domino – overview for developer
Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains has substantial market share among horizontal and vertical clientele in the USA, Canada (including French version for Quebec/Montreal), UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spanish speaking Latin and Central...
Is eCommerce Right For Our Business
If your business features products or services for sale, undoubtedly the topic of eCommerce has come up. What is eCommerce? Literally defined as "the conduct of financial transactions by electronic means," it refers to purchases made over the...
The Rumors of Ecommerce Death
As Nasdaq sputters along in dot com shame, a few million few dogged Internet consumers have ignored the crash. They continue to happily buy away. The good-news story is not popular with business writers, but Web retailing continues to grow...
Ecommerce Solutions Compared
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of businesses and
organizations eager to assist and sell product online.
Basically, they fall into four categories: credit card
transactions, digital cash transactions, electronic fund
transfers and telephone billing systems
The right choice for you depends upon your specific business
requirements.
1. Merchant Internet Accounts. Pros: Consumers are familiar with
credit cards with credit card transactions, consumers don’t
have to download and install special plug-in. Credit card sales
lends itself to impulse buying.
Cons: Consumers still have concerns regarding providing
financial information online. This method does not lend itself
well to the purchase of down loadable soft goods, such as
software, art, graphics, etc
2. Electronic Cash Transactions Electronic money is an
arrangement whereby the customer pays for the merchandise using,
well, electronic money. Examples of this are the well known
DigiCash, Cyberbucks, CyberCash, etc. Pros No credit card
transactions are required. No concerns re charge backs. Lends
itself well to micro payments.
Cons Many people are unfamiliar with the concept and shy away
from unknown entities. Eliminates the possibility of impulse
buying, unless both customer and merchant are already in same
scheme. May not be available
globally.
3. Electronic Fund Transfers Funds are transferred
electronically from the customer’s bank account to yours. The
best known method is the issuing of electronic checks Pros No
credit card worries. Available to persons who don’t have
credit cards
Cons A very new technology that some perceive as being less
secure than other forms of ecommerce. Many customers aren’t
set up to issue electronic cheques; time required to make the
arrangements eliminates impulse buying. May not be available to
international consumers.
4. Telephone Billing Systems A very new approach, telephone
transactions allow the customer to purchase an item or service,
and the amount is billed to his or her telephone bill. Pros
Eliminates worries about credit cards (for both consumer and
merchant) Safeguards soft merchandise â€" no possibility of
theft or pirating. Cons Customer is required to download and
install a plug-in. currently only available for soft merchandise
but can do some limited transactions for hard goods. Currently
available for sales using telephone modems and will not work for
transactions over cable modems and ISDN lines.
View our entire article collection.