Ecommerce used to be a catch-all term for doing business online. If you sold your product or service through a website, collected payments electronically, or dealt with customers in any way online... those activities fell under the ecommerce umbrella.
In recent years, however, nearly all businesses do some work online. For example, there's a good chance you already have a brochureware type website for your business, or you communicate with customers by email. So the "ecommerce" term has evolved as well.
These days, when people talk about "ecommerce", they're talking specifically about selling a physical product online. This sub-category of online business is different from, say, freelancing, selling a service, or writing for profit. Selling goods online involve special challenges, including:
- Shopping cart -- Instead of a 5-10 page static brochureware site, you need shopping cart software to list your products, calculate taxes, group purchases into a shipment (and charge the appropriate shipping & handling fee), and then offer a way for buyers to pay. eBay, Yahoo Small Business, and osCommerce are three of the most popular ecommerce platforms available.
- Payment processing -- Just like your brick & mortar store, you want to offer your customers various ways of paying. Your ecommerce business should give buyers a way to pay you online. PayPal, Intuit Merchant Services, and Authorize.net are popular payment gateways.
- Shipping -- Shipping out purchases, and dealing with returns, could be a full-time business on its own. If your shipping pipeline is inefficient, you will be forced to charge higher shipping costs, which adds to the total purchase price for the buyer. Fortunately, shipping vendors like the USPS and UPS offer free supplies and tools to help shippers.
For more articles to help you run your ecommerce business, check out our Selling Goods Online category.
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