Benefit from an e-commerce sales strategy

The internet is changing the balance of power between business and the customer. Before online shopping, companies could be reasonably certain that buying almost anything was not easy, so once a customer found a supplier they were comfortable with they tended to stick with them, at least until something went wrong.

But with the advent of e-commerce, customers can check out the options anywhere, and then buy from anyone. Customers can use comparison sites or shopping agents, or "bots" as they are known, to search the web for a bundle of products and report back on which supplier is offering them the cheapest. As a general rule, whatever sells in print in a catalogue will also sell on the internet.

There are several major advantages to developing an e-commerce sales strategy:

Efficiency - Electronic purchase orders and sales orders are more economical to place, track and manage.

Convenience - Buying and selling can go on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year from any location.

Speed - It takes far less time to complete the entire buy/sell process, thus speeding payment.

Accuracy - Virtually eliminates processing errors. Buying and selling firms have the same views of the transactions, which make online commerce more precise.

Global reach - Gives businesses an instant global reach to find supplies anywhere in the world, in any time or currency zone.

Low cost entry - Before the web, selling direct to consumers could be expensive. Setting up a retail outlet or printing a glossy catalogue could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. On the web, you can sell direct to consumers worldwide for a hundred pounds a month.

Up-to-date status and alerts - Generates instant pager, fax and e-mail notification to identify potential problems, enabling problem avoidance or swifter solutions. Also provides order histories.

The key to getting customers to buy online is having a site that inspires visitors with confidence. If your company is unable to put up a good website, then it seems natural to assume that your company cannot deliver good products or services. The people who visit your site are called "surfers". They have the same short attention span as TV "channel surfers". The average visitor to a website looks at only three pages before going somewhere else. They will leave at the slightest obstacle. If you want people to visit and order from your site, don't put any obstacles in their way. In particular, don't force visitors to register.