E-commerce, short for ‘electronic commerce,’ entails the trading in products or services using computer networks such as the Internet.
E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.
Below you’ll find a bunch of our posts related to e-commerce. Some of the topics that our company bloggers cover include magento e-commerce, and the best ecommerce sites that are currently active on the web. Because e-commerce is a wide and expansive field that is constantly growing, our team is constantly on the go to cover all the latest and greatest news associated with e-commerce.
Since Hara Partners is an e-commerce solutions company, all of the e-commerce going-ons in the world are of the most maximal concern to us. Some of the topics that we covered in the past include Asian e-commerce, mobile e-commerce platforms, and e-commerce trends.
For your information, we’ve also listed some of the common types of e-commerce platforms below:
On-premise E-commerce software usually requires initial one time purchase investment in terms of licensing fees. Also, it implies extra costs related to hardware and installation services as well as data migration and on-going maintenance fees that are usually charged on a yearly basis for software updates and support. Some examples of typical on premise E-commerce platforms are Hybris, Sanna Commerce, Oorjit, and IBM WebSphere.
Software as a Service (SaaS)- is a cloud based delivery model in which applications are hosted and managed in a service provider’s datacenter, paid for on a subscription basis and accessed via a browser over an internet connection. Two examples of typical SaaS E-commerce solutions are Shopify and Demandware.
Open source e-Commerce is a free of charge platform that doesn’t imply licenses fee. Furthermore, open source users are also responsible for installing, maintaining, securing and configuring the software on their own servers. In order to set up an open source platform, basic technical expertise is required in the areas of web design and development. Software products that are distributed as open source are generally free, and users can access and modify the source code. Three examples of typical open source E-commerce platforms are PrestaShop, osCommerce, Magento and Thelia.
Constantly, fashion and soft-goods companies have to maintain visibility to generate purchase orders, profit and success. This means that there is no room for error. There can be no delays in shipping out orders, nor letting websites become out-dated.
There is nothing more annoying than managing your IT infrastructure. Not only is it complicated, it is time consuming. And it can be expensive. If your company does not have the resources in house to deliver these services continuously, your business could face revenue loss. Plus, it could make your clients doubt the efficiency of your business. But do not worry! You do not have to tackle all of these concerns and focus on your business at the same time. Instead, you can use CGS’s broad range of services for infrastructure, application development and hosted solutions.
Toll free numbers (freephone) do exactly what they say on the tin – they’re free for the dialing party to call. In the USA, they are commonly signified by an 800 number, and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. In the UK, they begin with 0800, 0808, or 0500 (they’re usually British Telecom numbers). They may not be free from cellphones, but they are from landlines.
Many online retailers offer free shipping to their customers. But only if they spend over a certain amount of money. For example, $50. This technique has already generated success since customers will add more to their carts. They will do this to reach the free shipping threshold. But what if your online retailing business can gain even more profit by utilizing this free shipping technique?
The e-commerce industry has been growing. With companies growing in Eastern Europe and Asia, the past few years have been good for the industry. Not to mention the largest growth the e-commerce industry has seen in its history in the first quarter of 2016. Also with the growing industry does not seem to be feeling the growing pains of the increase of the minimum wage. However, with all of these gains comes loses too. Since Silicon Valley is leading the world in computer advancement New York City has fallen behind. The city’s newest companies, many e-commerce, cannot find firms to invest in their business. Another loses on the international scale is Anand Chandrasekaran quitting the position of chief product officer in the company, Snapdeal. This news came as a surprise because he was only with the company for a year.
Anand Chandrasekaran is a Stanford alum who played an important role in the company with Google. He was pivotal in India’s e-commerce world. According to Economic Times, “The Stanford University alum had joined the company in June last year from Airtel where he was the chief product officer. Chandrasekaran’s hiring was pivotal for the company at that time as rival Flipkart onboarded a Google executive, Punit Soni, to handle a similar role.”
This article might seem strange because it is talking about India, not America. However, this is important because India is an important place for e-commerce. There are many jobs and companies in India, so what happens there is important for the rest of the e-commerce world. Also the fact that Chandrasekaran isn’t the only leading person in the e-commerce industry to step down from a company they helped build. According to Economic Times, “Recently, three key hirees – head of Flipkart’s ecommerce platform Mukesh Bansal, chief product officer Punit Soni and chief business officer Ankit Nagori, had stepped down. “
The countries that made up the Soviet Union have been laughed at since the became independent democracies in the 1990s. Those countries have been considered third world countries and have had plenty of internet scams that came out of them. However, more recently these former Soviet Block countries have been moving up quickly in the e-commerce arena. Eastern Europe is now the fourth largest region in the world in terms of B2C e-commerce. The region is also home to many emerging online retail markets. Analysts think it is due to the boom of e-commerce in Asia.
According to PR Newswire, “B2C E-Commerce sales accounted for only a small one-digit share of the total retail sales in Eastern Europe in 2015, less than half of the shares in North America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific. This is an indication of the potential for further online retail growth in Eastern Europe, supported by increasing Internet and online shopper penetration in its leading countries.”
This growth means that there is an increasing interest to start investing in Eastern European countries again. The better these companies can do in the next few months will be watched by companies and countries interested in working with the countries in region.
As the e-commerce begins to grow and evolve the better these companies will become and strong they will become. When this happens it will bring jobs and money into the region and hopefully end those jokes about how terrible it is to live there.
According to PR Newswire, “In other major markets of the region, including Turkey and Poland, online retail is also evolving. Important trends include the growth of mobile and cross-border E-Commerce, yStats.com finds. Smartphone penetration is growing across the region, with countries such as the Czech Republic having already surpassed a 50% smartphone penetration rate among the mobile phone users. Another interesting trend is the popularity of price comparison websites, especially in Greece, Romania and Hungary.”
Pitney Bowes is extending the reach of e-commerce with Cloud technology. The global e-commerce and shipping solution provider has created SendPro. SendPro is a cloud-based shipping solution created to keep track of business’s transactions. This technology will help people manage shipments with all of their different carriers.
Pitney Bowes is basically offering companies who use SendPro an all-in-one platform to manage their shipments and shipping costs. This way, customers will have access to the best and fastest shipping rates. This move by Pitney Bowes is a giant leap in e-commerce, because it meets the demands of the growing online shopping market.
According to Business Insider, last month, the e-commerce company revealed its intentions to focus on helping e-retailers process orders and ship packages. Here is their basic plan:
This move is great for the company. This could provide many more opportunities for Pitney Bowes. E-commerce is not just about buying goods online; it’s also about billing and shipping. This new technology will help businesses ship their products on time, at a good price. Pitney Bowes is focusing on how to get their Cloud used by other businesses, now that online shopping is so popular. The new SendPro mailing and shipping technology is a big help to small businesses especially. Small businesses have been using outdated, single carrier shipping methods. But SendPro takes away the stress of shipping for e-commerce.
In addition to this, Pitney Bowes is offering a three-month free trial of SendPro. This way, businesses can decide for themselves if the product is useful for their company without committing to it. Currently, millions of people use Pitney Bowes for their services already.
The worries over minimum wage increases have e-commerce companies cringing. There has been research done which says the increase in wages won’t hurt the industry. Since e-commerce has a lower labor cost, around 20%, these companies thought they could escape having to spend a lot more money. Also e-commerce companies are very small and bare bones, so it should hurt over all cost. This thought stopped much of the worry. However, this thought was wrong, now that areas are starting to apply the minimum wage increase to work. Now that the initial research was wrong, the next question is how could they have been so wrong?
The research in the e-commerce industry had forgotten was the internet and the sales industry. The younger generations such as Millennials and Generation Y are changing the retail industry. They no longer go into stores and do not have a lot of money. These two aspects are shrinking the retail industry. The industry is already shrinking due to online sales and may not be able to sustain its workers. This is forcing retailers to raise prices, which will hurt the e-commerce industry.
According to Forbes, the internet is losing retail stores a lot of business. Allen Questrom, an expert in these industries says,
“Retailers are in an existential bind: The Internet is for the most part, a money-losing business, but stores have no choice but to be in it, Questrom said Merchants are diverting capital from a moneymaking business [brick-and-mortar stores], and dumping big dollars into their money-losing online and mobile businesses, he said. A recent study from HRC advisory supports that notion, revealing that e-commerce, including the steep costs of fulfilling online orders, is chipping away at retail profit margins.”
It seems since the internet these giant stores and industries have been in decline. Now they are in a strange place and the future isn’t looking good.
E-Commerce takes hit from wage increase. One report states that warehouses with 500 or more workers may see an annual rise in labor cost by $1 million or more. This news might sound alarming to people who rely on cheap labor to keep their small business afloat. Also with the growth of the e-commerce industry it has made these companies move their warehouses and distribution centers closer to larger metropolitan areas.
With cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle all raising their minimum wage far beyond the federal minimum wage of $7.25 it is likely that many businesses will have to find a way to cut costs. Sometimes this will mean to lay off huge numbers of their workforce and downsize using automation.
“E-commerce and other businesses that are tied to these dense locations will see the greatest impacts” according to Spencer Levy, CBRE’s head of research in the Americas.
However, e-commerce companies should not worry that much because the average warehouse worker make an average of $12 an hour which is well above the minimum wage in most states. So e-commerce and other industries can breath a sigh of relief.
According to the Wall Street Journal, most e-commerce business costs are in transportation, about 50%, and labor costs are only 20% of the budget of these companies. Also these companies have cut much of their labor cost by using automated computer systems, so their running on a bare bones business structure. So if you are worried about your e-commerce company up and moving you can relax, if you have a job with an e-commerce company it is likely that they need you to do a job for them.
So apparently the e-commerce industry will continue to grow for a while as some states are raising their minimum wage, while others have no plans to. It really doesn’t matter much to these companies.
3 E-Commerce startups in New York City everyone should keep there eyes on. There has been some talk of New York City has been lagging behind Silicon Valley in the tech industry, but these startups prove that this is just talk. After all, the reason people are saying these things about New York is because it has a lot of startups that don’t make it. Whereas, in Silicon Valley they had startups like Google and others that shot right to the top. But in New York no marketing firm in their right mind will give a startup a lot of money. This makes financial and economic sense but, it might be too conservative to have something like Google happen. However, here are some startups located in New York that have promise.
Upworthy is a startup that started a little over a year ago in New York City. The website’s mission statement is to make web content that matters go viral. The website is focused on empowering important content on the web.
The Muse started in 2011, so it is only five years old, but has made a huge splash. The starters of this startup were three women who decided to start their own career development site. They started it because they were sick and tired of sites like Monster and others which they believed were agonizing sites to find anything on. SInce its launch, The Muse has help over 2 million people find a job. They were successful by asking the question, “What do I want to do with my Life.”
Buzzfeed is a startup from New York. I was surprised too. It is hard to believe that Buzzfeed was once a startup since it has blown up into a major social media website.I mean on Facebook Buzzfeed has almost 16 million likes.