Electronic commerce The term electronic commerce (or e-Commerce ) is generally used to refer to the distribution, marketing, sale or supply of goods and services by electronic means. Most of the time it refers to the sale of products over the Internet , but the term electronic commerce also encompasses purchasing mechanisms over the Internet (business to business).
Summary
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- 1 General characteristics
- 2 Organization of the Web
- 3 Traffic to the site
- 1 Ways to ensure that your website has good traffic
- 4 Positioning on the Internet
- 1 Search engine
- 2 Indexed page
- 5 Types of Electronic Commerce
- 6 Sources
General characteristics
Electronic commerce existed in many forms before the internet became popular. These forms still exist. They include the IED or electronic data exchange system, which is carried out mainly through their own networks that do not use the TCP / IP protocol . Some consider FDI to be much more important than the Internet for business-to-business (E&E) trade. This may be a moot point, particularly if other business sectors follow the recent lead of large industries such as General Motors Corporation , Ford Motor Company, and DaimlerChrysler., which established an integrated exchange of E&E suppliers for the automotive sector through a single global Internet portal.
The great interest recently shown in e-commerce may stem in large part from the way the Internet has affected business-to-consumer (E&C) commerce, transforming E&C commerce into electronic commerce for the first time. The interest in E&C electronic commerce has undeniable foundations, considering the phenomenal growth in the number of people connected to the Internet and the corresponding increase in commercial applications on the Internet.
It is clear that the Internet can be used for commercial transactions, be it EyE or EyC. A business transaction can be divided into three main stages: the advertising and search stage, the ordering and payment stage, and the delivery stage. Any of these stages can be carried out on the Internet and therefore can be covered within the concept of electronic commerce.
Companies and commercial organizations are increasingly using electronic media to advertise and sell goods and services around the world. Manufacturers and retailers in distant countries can offer their products and services by providing information on capacity and benefits of their products, contents or components, prices, production schedules, delivery times and payment terms. This information enables consumers of goods and services, whether they are manufacturers or individuals, to request what they want from the most competitive suppliers.
Organization of the Web
This answer consists of two parts: The first has to do with the organization of the Web and the second with the dissemination of information. The Web is not formally organized, that is, there is no central regulatory body or other authority that controls the information available on the Web, or the way it is presented. However, despite the fact that there is no one place where you can request a site to register, people who are looking for the information can access it, and the people who supply it can make it available. On the demand side, information seekers use search engines, directories, advertising, personal recommendations, topic-specific portals, and sometimes unsolicited email to find the relevant sites. On the supply side,
- Ensure that their websites appear in search engines that index sites such as AltaVista , Google and HotBot , and Web directories such as Yahoo .
- Advertise in product specific magazines, whether in print or online.
- Use low-cost or no-cost promotions in newsgroups, or selectively and responsibly use email and newsletters, or ask online customers to recommend you to their friends (and by offering some small incentive for such recommendations).
Traffic to the site
The promotion of products or services over the Internet can be considered as a form of marketing focused or focused on niches. This will tend to attract potential buyers with a specific interest in your products to your website. Advertising on the Web can therefore be more effective than mass advertising on television and in print media or mass correspondence.
Ways to ensure your website gets good traffic
- Register with multiple search engines.
- Inform customers by email of the new website address, allowing them to have instant one-click access.
- Announce the name and address of the website through press releases.
- Establish links with compatible websites, that is, those that have the same markets, objectives, but do not constitute competition.
- Write articles that describe interesting websites for the industry.
- Print website name and email address on stationery and business cards.
- Advertise in the local media.
- Include the website address in the yellow pages of the phone book.
- Inform sales representatives about the website.
- Offer discounts to those who order online.
- Send humorous allusive postcards to the website.
As the list above suggests, you can cross-promote the site through promotions with other offline media, and through online promotions using reciprocal links. If users find the information on the website useful, they will bookmark it and visit it again.
Positioning on the Internet
According to some sources (eg Web Site Garage, at http://Websitegarage.netscape.com and www.register-it.com) up to 85% of Internet users search for sites through search engines. Considering that more than 4,000 sites are added every day, it is important that companies that sell or market their products on the Internet make sure they appear in the search engines that their potential customers are likely to use.
Search Engine
A typical search engine searches for matches between words and phrases included in a large index that compiles of web pages that appear on the public network. The search engine uses a program known as a “spider” (or “robot”) because it is configured to follow links on the Web from one page to another, usually one site at a time, similar to the way that a spider follows the threads of its web.
Search engine software indexes web pages in different ways, but generally the index reflects the text content of at least the key pages of a web site. Given the enormous amount of text on the Web, search engines are generally selective about how deeply they index a site and how much text on each page they will try to index. The content most important to them is usually a combination of the text in the “Keywords” and “Description” meta tags of a page, the page title, or the words that are in the first few hundred characters of a page. . Not all these aspects
they are important to each of the search engines. Some, for example, ignore meta tags, and others use other factors to determine what they index on a page.
Regardless of how they index a web page, all search engines respond in similar ways to user queries. They extract from their index database a ranked list of pages whose index entry matches the search terms entered by the user. The ranking of each site in this list of search results reveals the accuracy of the match, based on criteria set by the search engine developers.
This explains why it pays to think carefully about the terms that users are likely to use when searching when they need your (or your competitors’) products. Make sure that all pages dominate the terms located in the areas that are most likely to be targeted by spider bots in indexing (page title, meta tags, top of text content). The more the content conforms to the most popular query terms, the more likely the web page, as long as it has been indexed by the search engine, will appear at the top of the user’s query results lists. However, it should be noted that the unnecessary and unintentional repetition of content on a web page, for example,
Indexed page
Most indexing search engines allow you to “log in” a URL, which is added to the search spider’s “to do” list. Look for a link that says “Add a URL” anywhere on the search engine page. Follow the link and carefully follow the instructions given to you. Most engines will ask you to write down a URL and an email address. You don’t need to register a separate address for all the pages on your site. Typically, the spider will follow site links from page to page, although sometimes only up to a predetermined limit. On the other hand, some spiders are not very good at handling links across a frameset.
It should be noted that these days it takes several months for the major search engines to do a full sweep of the pages included in their search list. Indexing a registered page can take up to 10 weeks.
Types of Electronic Commerce
Each type of electronic commerce has its characteristics, advantages and disadvantages and is classified into different models such as:
- B2B : From business to consumer.
- B2C : Between a company and its own employees.
- B2A .
- B2E : From company to employee.
- B2B2C .
- C2C .
- C2G .
- B2GC
