Ecommerce simply involves buying and selling of goods and services, and includes the transmission of data and funds over an electronic network. The most common applications used in ecommerce are email, shopping carts, and online catalog. It involves a degree of reliance on web services, file transfer protocols, and electronic data interchange. ProfitableVenture.com has listed fifty viable online business ideas for 2017. However, on our part, we would like to discuss some concepts that will help you in your pursuit for ecommerce business.
Unique Selling Proposition
According to James Blythe, author and professor of marketing, a unique selling proposition (USP) contains the one feature of a product that is distinct from the products of the competition. The unique feature must confer some advantage to the consumer. USP is one of the best approaches in creative advertising. It is preferable where the product being advertised is a result of high-level technological innovation. In USP, you must ensure that:
- Each advertisement makes a proposition to the consumer to purchase the product for a specific benefit
- The proposition should be one that is not offered by the competition
- It should also be strong enough to attract current and potential customers
Business-to-Business Opportunities
Business to business (B2B) transactions is conducted between businesses. It may be between a wholesaler and a retailer or a manufacturer and a wholesaler. The business is between a company and a company. B2B should be distinguished from B2C which business to consumer transactions and B2G which involves transactions between businesses and governments. It is possible to have other businesses as your target clients for your ecommerce business. The advantages of B2B ecommerce are immense and include: scalability, improved efficiencies, more customers, more brand awareness, increased sales, analytics, customer-centric experience, exceptional customer service, improved sales engagement and multi-site capability.
Business to Consumer Opportunities
Business to consumer transactions involveS a company and a consumer, for instance, a retailer selling goods to the end user. Although the company deals directly with consumers, the advantages discussed above under B2B apply here as well.
Domain Name
A website is a key resource in starting a successful ecommerce business. A domain name is an identification string defining a realm of administrative authority, autonomy or control within the internet. Domain names must be registered in accordance with domain name system rules and procedures. Generally, a domain name represents an internet protocol resource. Prominent domains include info, com, net, edu, and org. An understanding of domains is key because it will help you to make the right choice of domain for your website. You would confuse customers if for example; you used the domain “edu” for an online retail website as the domain is understood to imply that the website belongs to an education institution.
With the understanding gained here, we hope you will be better placed to understand ecommerce business enough to enable you to make the most out of your business ideas.
