E-commerce company will survive not only based on its product, but by having a competent management team, good post-sales services, well-organized business structure, network infrastructure and a secured, well-designed website. Such factors include:
Sufficient work done in market research and analysis. E-commerce is not exempt from good business planning and the fundamental laws of supply and demand. Business failure is as much a reality in e-commerce as in any other form of business.
A good management team armed with good and sound information technology strategy. A company's IT strategy should be a part of the business re-design process.
Providing an easy and secured way for customers to effect transactions. Credit cards are the most popular means of sending payments on the Internet, accounting for 90% of online purchases. In the past, card numbers were transferred securely between the customer and merchant through independent payment gateways. Such independent payment gateways are still used by most small and home businesses. Most merchants today process credit card dealings on site through arrangements made with business banks or credit cards companies.
Providing reliability and security. Parallel servers, hardware
redundancy, fail-safe technology, information encryption, and
firewalls can enhance this requirement.
Providing a 360-degree view of the customer relationship, defined
as ensuring that all employees, suppliers, and partners have a
complete view, and the same view, of the customer. However, customers
may not appreciate the big brother experience. Operating on or
near the cutting edge of technology and staying there as technology
changes but remembering that the fundamentals of commerce remain
indifferent to technology.
Setting up an organization of sufficient alertness and agility
to respond quickly to any changes in the economic, social and
physical environment. Providing an attractive website. The tasteful
use of color, graphics, animation, photographs, fonts, and white-space
percentage may aid success in this respect.
Streamlining business processes, possibly through re-engineering
and information technologies.
Providing complete understanding of the products or services
offered, which not only includes complete product information,
but also sound advisors and selectors.
Naturally, the e-commerce vendor must also perform such mundane
tasks as being truthful about its product and its availability,
shipping reliably, and handling complaints promptly and effectively.
A unique property of the Internet environment is that individual
customers have access to far more information about the seller
than they would find in a brick-and-mortar situation.
