e-Commerce applications in Manufacturing

Manufacturing can be defined as the process of collecting and then converting raw materials into finished,
qualitative goods or products for the consumers. Manufacturing requires a web of various components, contracts
personnel etc working intricately together and in synch in order to produce goods or services. Manufacturing
requires components, assemblies, transportation, storages, paper works, etc. ecommerce applied to the supply
chain management process helps in reducing the overall costs drastically and improves quality and efficiency by
automating most of the supply chain .

eCommerce application in Wholesale

Selling goods or products in large quantities to anyone other than the consumers, take for example the retailers,
industrial/ commercial or other business users or even distributors are known as wholesalers. Physical
assembling, sorting & grading goods in large lots, breaking bulk, repacking & redistributing in smaller lots is all a
part wholesale...
Problems faced by the traditional system of wholesale:

The local wholesalers could not compete with the foreign wholesale enterprises who had acquired highly
advanced management and operational skills over due time..
The wholesale sector was characterized for its high input and low output...

Wholesale operating costs which included staffing, setting up and acquiring land for local warehouses,
establishing distribution centers,etc were extremely high...

Role of eCommerce in wholesale:

 Reduced operating costs, access to accurate and correct information on time & quick responses helps in
qualitative and efficient decision making..
 Ability of doing global marketing in less time and cheaper
 Gaining and catching up to the competitive edge held by foreign wholesalers such as MNC’s
 Offers a wide and extensive range of information, intermediary and business services..

eCommerce application in Retail

Selling of goods and services to the consumers for their personal consumption and use is known as retailing.
Take for example... Ebay.com, departmental stores, then services like dentists, doctors, hotels, etc...
Retailers provide a link between the consumers and the manufacturers and add value to the product and service
by making their sales easier. Retailers answer any queries that you may have, they display and demonstrate
products to the consumers before selling it to them... this makes the services by retailers less risky and more fun
to buy products..
They even provide extra services from personal shopping to gift wrapping and home delivery!!
Role of eCommerce in Retailing:

The Internet has made retailing an exciting and challenging field in recent days with various companies hosting
their stores online via the internet..
People can now sit at their computers, open the website they desire to do so and browse their the catalogues
put up by the company (retailer), choose their product and either pay for it online itself or on delivery... You don't
need to step outta your room to make a purchase nowadays..

Having your store online helps drastically in cost cutting as companies don't need to purchase stores, they can
cut down on staff, provide services to a much wider audience, etc

eCommerce application in the Service sector

One of the three main industrial categories of a developed economy is the service sector..
It involves basically the provision of all services such as distribution and sales of goods to other businesses and
consumers such as pest control, entertainment and even services such as transportation.
It also includes the public utilities and the soft parts of the economy such as insurance, banking, education,
insurance, etc...
The service sector focuses mainly on people to people services...

Issues faced by the service sector:

Since services are intangible, its extremely difficult to make customer understand and aware about their
benefits...

Quality of services depends solely on the quality of the individual providing the services..
There's no special technology or anything like in manufacturing to attract people.
Role of eCommerce in the Service Sector:

eCommerce helps in improving and increasing the speed of transactions, reduces management expenditure,
increases efficiency and increases competitiveness..

Helps the insurance, banking and mainly all the financial sectors, real estate, telecommunications, tourism,
logistics, and postal services..

eCommerce also helps services gain a competitive advantage by providing strategies for differentiation, cost
leadership and customer satisfaction....

E-CRM
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a way to identify, acquire, and
retain customers – a business’ greatest asset. By providing the means to
manage and coordinate customer interactions, CRM helps companies
maximise the value of every customer interaction and in turn improve
corporate performance.

E-CRM, or Electronic Customer Relationship Management, is an integrated

online sales, marketing and service strategy that is used to identify, attract and
retain an organisation’s customers. It describes improved and increased
communication between an organisation and its clients by creating and
enhancing customer interaction through innovative technology. E-CRM
software provides profiles and histories of each interaction the organisation
has with its customers, making it an important tool for all small and medium
businesses.
eCRM: Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers making use of
Information Technology (IT). eCRM is enterprises using IT to integrate internal organization resources and
external marketing strategies to understand and fulfill their customers needs. Comparing with traditional
CRM, the integrated information for eCRM intraorganizational collaboration can be more efficient to
communicate with customers.As the internet is becoming more and more important in business life, many
companies consider it as an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs, tighten customer relationships
and most important, further personalize marketing messages and enable mass customization. ECRM is
being adopted by companies because it increases customer loyalty and customer retention by improving
customer satisfaction, one of the objectives of eCRM.
SCM is defined as the supervision of materials, information, and finances as they
move from supplier to manufacturerto wholesaler to retailer to consumer. It involves
the coordination and integration of these flows both within andamong companies.
The goal of any effective supply chain management system is timely provision of
goods or servicesto the next link in the chain (and ultimately, the reduction of
inventory within each link)
 The product flow
 The information flow
 The finances flow

What is an electronic payment system? Why is it important?

An electronic payment system (EPS) is a system of financial exchange between buyers and sellers in the
onlineenvironment that is facilitated by a digital financial instrument (such as encrypted credit card
numbers, electronicchecks, or digital cash) backed by a bank, an intermediary, or by legal tender. EPS plays
an important role in e-commerce because it closes the e-commerce loop. In developing countries, the
underdeveloped electronic paymentssystem is a serious impediment to the growth of e-commerce. In
these countries, entrepreneurs are not able to accept credit card payments over the Internet due to legal
and business concerns. The primary issue is transaction security.