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 The terms
e-commerce and e-business often are used interchangeably. However,
ecommerce
refers only to business-to- consumer (B2C) and business-to-business
(B2B)
selling over the Internet. In contrast, e-business extends beyond
e-commerce to include a wider
dependency on the Internet.authenticate both parties. |
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Major
Transitions in e-Business
Initially,
e-business revolved around static content delivery letting people
access information on Web servers. Today content delivery is
rapidly growing more sophisticated, making transactions the
primary focus. |
| Content
Delivery Staticconten |
| –
All pages look the same to everyone looking at them. Static
content is good for providing information and has low overhead
on the servers. |
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| Dynamic
content |
 –
Pages are tailored to individuals. This is useful for providing
information that is customized to an individual (e.g. myYahoo).
It has higher overhead on the servers, but is still reasonably
low. |
| Transactions
|
| –
Web pages that change as the user interacts with those pages,
choosing various options or things to buy. Transactions can
cause significant load on the Web servers as the pages perform
the requested actions. |
| N-tier
Architecture |
Complex
transactions use an n-tier server architecture that assigns
sub-units of the transaction to sets of servers. N-tier is a
techie way to say multi-tier, which means that any number of
servers can be involved in a transaction. This decentralized
approach permits optimal performance of each sub-unit. It also
improves availability by using multiple servers in each tier,
which allows for more transactions.
Make it easier for your customers to do business with you. Instead
of searching for the correct part in a lengthy catalog, calling
into a fax-back system to get more information, waiting for
that to arrive, calling a sales rep to make sure the part is
in stock, and then completing the order form and faxing it in—Internet
commerce works by enabling your customers to interact with you
whenever it's most convenient for them from any PC with a Web
browser.
At the same time, you can deliver accurate, timely, and personalized
information on products, product interactions or configuration
rules, customer-specific pricing, and inventory availability.
In short, you are providing all of the information they need
to make a purchase decision and, after that, to easily track
the status of their order. |
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Boost your profitability two ways
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Powerful
Potential Savings
Almost
immediately, your site will save you from responding to costly
customer calls and fax-back inquiries. If you are like many
companies, 70% of the calls you receive are placed to ask one
of three questions:
What's the price of the product?
Is the product in stock?
What's the status of my order?
All
of these questions can be answered at no cost to you by the
customer through the Internet. Most companies are experiencing
savings on the order of 15% of their current customer service
costs and 30% of their current fax-back costs by making this
information available over the Internet. The Internet can also
save you the time and expense associated with order inaccuracies.
It is estimated that up to 20% of the orders most companies
receive have some inaccuracy—transposed numbers, out of stock
or discontinued parts, or invalid configurations. These can
be eliminated by having customers directly place their orders
over the Internet.
As you learn more about just who is viewing and ordering from
you on line, you can reduce sales costs by reducing the number,
frequency, and size of the physical catalogs you send to your
customers. Large business-to-business companies are projecting
that they can cut the cost of print catalogs in half, saving
millions of dollars each year.
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