What is Ecommerce
Ecommerce, short for Electronic Commerce, is the buying and/or selling of goods or services online.
We refer to businesses that follow this model as online business or ecommerce business.
Ecommerce Business Models
There are 4 business models that are common in ecommerce. They are..
- B2B – Business to Business
- In B2B business models, the business sells to another business
- For example, a business may buy their furniture, office supplies, computers, etc from other companies.
- B2C – Business to Consumer
- B2C business models on the other hand are more familiar and common to us.
- It is a model where businesses sell to their end-users, the consumers.
- This includes clothes you bought online, that burger and fries you bought from McDonald’s, and so on and so forth.
- C2C – Consumer to Consumer
- C2B – Consumer to Business
- In C2B business models, an individual can sell to businesses.
- An example of this is freelancing sites where you, an individual, sell your services to businesses.
Products and Services Offered by Ecommerce Businesses
Some of the products and services Ecommerce sell:
- Physical products – clothes, shoes, food, etc.
- Digital Products – ebooks, printables, online courses, etc.
- Services – Web Development, web design, copywriting, etc.
Advantages of Ecommerce Business
I’ve listed below some of the benefits of starting an online business,
- Easy to start
Unlike starting a brick-and-mortar store, you can create an ecommerce store with just a few clicks.
- Lower cost
Creating an ecommerce store became easier due to the platform choices available today like Shopify, Wix, Bigcommerce, etc.
You can even create an online store on facebook if you want to.
- Convenient
Online stores bring convenience not just to customers but also to business owners.
- Not limited to one geographical location
Ecommerce stores selling digital products and offering services that thrive on the web benefits the most with this.
Being online means that people from all over the world can view and buy your product without traveling.
- 24/7/365
Customers can see your product anytime, anywhere.
Disadvantages of Ecommerce Business
As all things in life, Ecommerce stores also have their own disadvantages and some of them are,
- Customers can’t touch the product
As a customer myself, it makes me feel assured if I can see and touch the product personally. It just feels different.
Especially clothes and that’s also why I don’t usually buy clothes online unless I really wanted the design.
- When your ecommerce website crashes, say goodbye to your sales.
This is why having a reliable platform or web hosting provider is so important.
If there is something wrong with your website or if your customers can’t access your store for some reason, their experience with your store will not be so good.
You might irritate them and switch to your competitor who’s just one website away.
- Highly competitive
Remember when I said that it’s easy to start an ecommerce business?
That’s the reason why your competitor is just one website away from you.
Plus, if your product is not that great and can easily be replaced by others, then acquiring customer loyalty may still be far away from you.
- You’ll have to ship physical products
This isn’t a problem for those digital product sellers and online service providers I mentioned earlier but for those who sell physical products, they’ll have to take the time to package their product for delivery.
Conclusion
Now that you know what Ecommerce means and it’s advantages and disadvantages.
It may be time to try for yourself what ecommerce stores can do.
I have a series “Start An Ecommerce Business” that you might want to check out.
It’s a series I made when my family and I decided to start an online business, I wrote what I learned there and the steps we took in our journey.
It’s also to document that personal project and to serve as a future guide for me when I want to start another ecommerce store.
I hope it’ll be able to help you too ☺️.
