Essay on New Challenges in Creating an Effective E-commerce Presence on the Web
The Web that was evolved in the 20th century has quickly become a significant instrument to facilitate business transactions and has made a market, which has a lot of potential “clients.” Nevertheless, each coin has two sides. The profitable exploration of the Web has made a prosperous cyber market, but it at the same time makes a novel challenge for traditional law to regulate this virtual market. This paper will analyze the e-commerce challenges, the e-commerce laws concerning online business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. Also this paper will analyze how an e-commerce organization creates a presence on the Web, how it attracts and retains clients and which issues influence e-commerce today.
E-Commerce in the UK
Despite a slowdown in United Kingdom B2C in 2008 (because of recession) it’s calculated that 70% of Web users in England over age of fourteen will buy as a minimum 1 product on Web in 2009 and by year 2013 the amount of online purchasers will augment to 30m (more than half of all local populace). E-commerce is still mainly resistant to an economic recession due to competitive prices, simple goods comparison, energy reserves and other factors. Also, while slower than in, for instance, Asia mobile commerce will carry on increasing in England which experiences an extremely competitive mobile marketplace.
Along with two European nations Germany and France, the United Kingdom possesses one of the major potential domestic electronic commerce marketplaces in the whole Europe with high rates. Additionally, there is even larger hidden potential for electronic commerce work with the rest of European nations where Web usage rates have customarily lagged behind in many nations, for instance Cyprus and Latvia. The European market is potentially bigger than the American one.
As the “country of small shop keepers” and the primary nation to initiate the manufacturing revolution the potential of novel e-commerce revolution hasn’t been lost on the government of the United Kingdom. The present government stated that it planned to do everything possible to make the United Kingdom the “best spot for electronic commerce in the world.”
Challenges
The major challenge to the United Kingdom’s electronic strategies in general and electronic commerce especially is its shortage of broadband capability which will need important additional investment in cable and fiber upgrades to advance the quality. The amount of savings will need public private sphere partnership. The UK administration has moved fast to make OFCOM discuss previous mandates with British Telecom that were established with privatized usefulness to guarantee reasonable competition in a recently deregulated telecoms market (Quayle, 2002). Renegotiation targets to allow British Telecom to recover expenses from infrastructure asset and eliminate some of the favored conditions (for 3-rd parties) now that the deregulated market has developed. It has by now prompted many commitments from British Telecom and some other private sector companies are reacting on the challenge for high speed services, for instance Virgin’s forty Mbps trials.
Mobile Commerce
Mobile Commerce: since rivalry heats up in the smartphones and tablets marketplace, mobile commerce is becoming a larger section of sales. M-commerce has taken off and mobile commerce services are growing fast, according to a research of Telecom Trends International. The study says while victorious m-commerce deployments nowadays mostly concentrate on digital information, there is a rising movement toward a broader range of mobile commerce transactions. “Mobile commerce is not merely electronic commerce that became mobile – it is much more – and it will be a huge element of the international economy,” asserted Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, author of the research. “Due to the fact that human beings carry phones everywhere, they will finally replace wallets, common shopper cards, and even family pictures,” she added. According to the research, there were 95 million m-commerce users in 2003, which will grow to 1.5 billion users by 2008. Digital data, though developing in essence to comprise more multimedia, will preserve a huge percent of entire sales, the research declared, while touchable products and interactive transactions will carry on to augment.
Trust and Loyalty
Most companies know 2 common methods of identifying and reaching purchasers: personal contact or mass media. These 2 methods are usually called communication modes since they involve a characteristic way of conveying data from one human being to another. In the personal contact model, the firm’s personnel individually search for, qualify, and contact possible clients. This individual contact approach to reaching customers is sometimes called prospecting. In a mass media approach, organizations prepare advertising materials about the firm and its goods. They then deliver the messages to latent purchasers by broadcasting them on TV or radio, issuing them in newspapers or journals, posting them on billboards, or sending them via e-mail.
When customers purchase goods or services, they are also purchasing service element. A seller may develop worth in the relations with a client by nurturing his or her trust and turning it into loyalty. Current researches have discovered that a 5% boost in client loyalty measures may succumb revenue increases ranging from 25% to 80%. When a client has an experience with a seller who gives nice service, that customer starts to trust the seller. When a client has multiple positive experiences with a seller, that purchaser becomes loyal to a seller. Therefore, the recurrence of pleasing service may create customer loyalty, which may prevent a client from seeking alternative retailers who suggest lower prices.
Creating an Effective Web Presence
On the Web, businesses and many other companies have the luxury of creating the Web sites purposely to make characteristic presences. A company’s physical location has to satisfy so many other business needs that it often fails to convey a good presence. A nice Internet site design may provide image enhancing characteristics very efficiently – it can serve as a very convenient sales brochure, a product display area, a financial report and a customer contact point. Every unit which creates a Net presence needs to make up a decision which characteristics the site may provide and which of those characteristics are the most imperative to include.
Businesses have always established a presence in the physical globe by building shops, office buildings, factories and warehouses. A company’s presence is the public image it transmits to its stakeholders. The stakeholders of a firm include its clients, suppliers, employees, neighbors and the public. The majority of firms opt not to worry about the representation they project till they grow to an important size – till then, they are too concentrated on just surviving to spare the effort. On the Internet, presence may be far more imperative. Many clients and other stakeholders know the firm merely through its Web presence. Making an effectual Web presence may be crucial even for the smallest companies operating on the Net.
Concerning the smallest businesses it is important to say that, as the Wes has developed, it has leveled the playing field for medium-sized and small organizations. No matter the size, a new small company may today utilize the Internet to gain benefits that only large businesses enjoyed, for instance, the capability to reach clients around the world. The Web has evolved a world of chances (Chaffey, 2011).
The Net has changed and keeps changing the manner business gets done. Large, medium-sized and small businesses are on almost a level playing field trading under the sun. Clients utilize the Web to seek goods and services, compare them and find the most rational prices. By taking a small business online, a person may now contend with larger companies and even do it much better since a business may simply target the clientele. Plus, sometimes it is far simpler to have an online business than “bricks and mortar” one.
Web Site Usability
Studies show that few companies achieve all of their aims for their sites in the current Internet presences. Even Web pages that do well in achieving most of the aims usually fail to give adequate interactive contact opportunities. Most sites give the common impression that a company is really significant and its workers are too busy to reply to questions. This does not encourage people to become clients. Successful businesses know that each visitor is a potential client (Reynolds, 2004).
Taxes and the Net
But, aside from the moments of doing business on the Web, such as advertising techniques, web site usability and market share, there are legal issues for online businesses, such as:
- Paying sales taxes;
- Utilizing e-signatures and e-contracts;
- Marketing tactics, known as “spamming.”
Cyber law, the regulation that relates to the usage of computers and connected activities, is quite young and now developing. There are many legal gray spheres concerning Web businesses. Thus, before taking a business online, the business owner should research the matter methodically, or get assistance from an experienced business law legal representative.
Taxes and Internet-based sales are the stickiest legal matter online businesses face (Foss, 2000). States wish to support business within their limits and wish the currency to go into the treasuries, but for the most part, Web sales are and carry on to be tax free.
The meaning of “spam” has altered with the appearance of the Web. Marketing is today far simpler and easier, yet it has also made many unwanted and unwelcome e-mail marketing campaigns, which fill consumer in-boxes. In some cases the company has to pay fines for annoying campaigns (Edwards, 2000).
E-commerce Rules in the UK
The UK’s customary consumer protection rules relate to on-line distance trade as well and certain online rules have been brought in that have mostly been derived from regulations of European Union which share themes of guaranteeing the transparency of the e-commerce seller’s identity, terms, processes, prices and conditions of trade and civil rights to remedy in case of dissatisfaction (Greggio, 2000). In spite of the more comfortable consumer laws in the United Kingdom, agreement with EU electronic commerce rules and language may prove burdensome for cross border electronic commerce dealers, leading to the gap among national and international electronic commerce to widen.
The concept of “presence” is a basic principle of jurisdiction under English common law. English jurisdiction is based on the service of a court order or a claim form on the presence of the defendant in England. Under English common law, courts may have jurisdiction over a foreign defendant where a claim form is served on the defendant present within the UK. The main factor to establish the competence of English jurisdiction is the physical appearance of the defendant in the UK. As for traditional commerce, this rule is sensible since most customary forms of commerce are conducted through physical contacts between the seller and the purchaser and thus, the defendant has a higher opportunity to be present in England.
Issues Affecting E-commerce
Taxation and a capability to make protected monetary connections over the Web are 2 main issues influencing the evolvement of electronic commerce. Now that protected credit card dealings are achievable over the Net, many new techniques of Web payments are most likely to be accepted. Smart cards that employ either an individual identification number to control access and avert scam are today widely accepted. In terms of Web commerce, e-purse cards, a sort of smart card, would be utilized to make tiny value or nameless purchase over the Web. Value may be added to cards from a home banking use over the Net. It was predictable that clients would be grateful for the ease and safety of loading electronic cash to a card in own home for usage in making trades over the Net.
Web payment services are becoming more and more accessible to Net retailers. Firms provide Web retailers with the advantages of outsourcing complex Web transactions internationally. Businesses may distantly access many applications, either with the help of the software installed on the server or with the help of a URL link from a net page. The services comprise multicurrency processing, card scam defense, automatic sales and tax calculations, export and distribution.
Conclusion
This paper analyzed the e-commerce challenges, the e-commerce laws concerning online business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. Also this paper describes how an e-commerce organization creates a presence on the Web, how it attracts and retains clients and which issues influence e-commerce today.
Together with two European nations Germany and France, the United Kingdom possesses one of the major latent national e-commerce markets in Europe with high rates. Additionally, there is even larger hidden potential for e-commerce work with the rest of Europe where Web usage rates have customarily lagged far behind in many nations, for instance Cyprus and Latvia. The European marketplace is potentially larger than the American market. The major challenge to the UK’s e-commerce especially is its absence of broadband capability which will need important further investment in fiber and cable upgrades to improve the quality. However, the current administration does everything possible to cope with this challenge. So, today small and large businesses may work on their presence on the Web. Concerning the smallest businesses it is important to mention that, as the Wes has developed, it has leveled the playing field for medium-sized and small organizations. No matter their size, a new small company may today utilize the Internet to gain benefits that only large business enjoyed, for instance, the capability to reach clients around the world. The Web has evolved a world of chances. Nevertheless, aside from the moments of doing business on the Web, there are lawful matters for online businesses, such as paying sales taxes, utilizing e-signatures and e-contracts and marketing tactics, known as “spamming.” And any company that wants to start working online in England should pay attention to local laws and regulations.
