I have no idea who first came up with the idea of selling actual, physical things on the internet; but I do know that, since its inception, e-commerce (i.e. on line purchasing) has grown by leaps and bounds. Whether it is inter-company trade (B2B – business to business) or selling directly to the public at large (DTC – direct to consumer) more and more potential buyers are checking out the possibilities from on line stores and, significantly, making more and more purchases.
Why Buy On Line?
The obvious reason for the growth of e-commerce has to lie in its convenience; however, a few perceived objections had to be positively shown to have been overcome before this trading method could really catch on. For example; sellers and buyers needed to be convinced that:-
- The entity behind the website actually existed and had the items ready for sale.
- The customers were real and honest people.
- The seller needed a reliable way to ensure that payments were made and the money received by him.
- The buyers needed reassurance that any form of electronic payment that they made would be used to pay for their order.
- Both sides needed to know that anything sold would be quickly and reliably dispatched by the seller and safely received by the buyer. Since a lot of e-commerce transactions are on a “payment with order basis”; a way to incorporate shipping costs into the selling price was also needed.
Fortunately, for both sides of e-commerce transactions, all the above objections were overcome – at least by the majority honest and ethical parties involved (unfortunately, there are still some scam artists out there on the World Wide Web; but these are relatively easy to spot and avoid).
E-commerce Can Be satisfying; But, How Is That Fulfilled?
An important part of this is provided by the Ecommerce Fulfillment Companies. The actual on line trader may well be operating his business out of a suite of offices; he can obtain goods at advantageous bulk purchase prices and sell them on with a small uplift to his on line customers. However, for this to work, he has to maintain low overheads; the cost of owning or renting warehouse facilities (to store his bulk purchases in) and employing a shipping department may well upset his margins. To avoid this, he may decide to outsource the entire operation, for getting his goods to his customers, to one of the specialist Ecommerce Fulfillment Companies.
