E-Commerce: Revolutionizing
The Way We Do Business
It was in the name
of commerce that the Spanish, represented by Magellan, searched for the
Spice Islands and "stumbled" upon the Philippine Islands. There
is also evidence that a local trade system already existed among our ancestors
long before the dawn of Spanish colonization.
These days,
it no longer takes a ship, days of navigation, or the financial support
of a king to connect our business to the global market. With just a click
on a computer mouse, we can search for our own "Spice Island"
and barter electronically.
According to a study conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres, 47% of the United
States' total population are Internet users, 27% of this represents users
who shop online. In the Philippines, only about 10% of our total population
represents Internet users, 2% of which represents online shoppers. These
numbers, however small compared to the U.S., show that the Internet will
become more publicly accessible to us. Philippine businesses are currently
targeting existing online shoppers as the numbers of Internet users grow
in the country.
The Internet
has become the most attractive solution as an alternative and low-cost
"commerce channel." It presents businesses, small and large,
with tremendous opportunity to create new revenue streams. Companies and
organizations will be able to do business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
– with no physical boundary or geographical limitation. The
Concept of E-Commerce
E-commerce is
not just online retailing that accommodates online consumer shopping,
buying, and payment activities. It is about maximizing network technologies
to improve business processes with other businesses (B2B market) or directly
with end consumers (B2C market) online.
E-commerce merchants
utilize online marketing and merchandising techniques to attract, retain,
and create profiles of their online customers, as well as to promote more
customized products and services on the internet.
Benefits from E-Commerce
To Entrepreneurs
Makes the size
of a company immaterial
With e-commerce, large and small companies have the same opportunity
to access customers and can have the same kind of Internet presence.
Makes the company
location irrelevant
Customers located anywhere can easily access your company's site. You
are not limited to customers within/near your geographic area.
Increases feedback
You have instant access to your customer responses and feedback when
you publish new marketing and pricing programs and new products on your
web site.
To Business Partners
Online shopping
provides business partners with ready access to the information.
When provided with
online access to information, business partners can answer customers'
questions more quickly, resulting in fewer errors, lower costs, and
higher satisfaction.
To Consumers
Online shopping
has 24-hour availability.
Online shopping
can be done from work, home, or friend's PC–no travelling required!
Because you can
shop within the comforts of home at any time of the day, a lot of time
can be saved for other activities.
E-commerce offers
the luxury of shopping with privacy.
Because E-commerce
incurs lower cost to businesses and companies, consumers can expect
lower prices than traditional channels.
Consumers can have
more informed purchase decisions. Online shopping offers a lot of information
about products and services.
Online shopping
offers greater product selection. E-commerce is not hindered or limited
by geographical location of various companies or businesses.
With online shopping,
consumers can avoid annoying salespeople.
Reference:
Clemente, P. 1998.
State of the Net: The New Frontier. McGraw-Hill: New
York.
Rosen, A. 2000.
The E-Commerce Question and Answer BooK: A Survival
Guide for Business Managers. AMA: New York.
Turban, E, Lee,
J., King, D., & Chung H. 1999. Electronic Commerce: A Managerial
Perspective. Prentice-Hall: New Jersey.
E-Commerce and
Web Philippines, Inc.
As enhanced web-based technologies continue to develop our experience
on the Internet in a variety of ways, Web Philippines Inc. consistently
renews its commitment to value by showing e-commerce as not just an online
retailing medium that accommodates online consumer shopping, buying and
payment activities. We show our clients how to harness the potential of
e-commerce through business collaboration and network technologies development
to improve business processes with other businesses (B2B market) or directly
with end consumers (B2C market) online.
Our goal is
to assist our clients in managing customer relationships. After all, what
better instrument to use in tracking actual sales of products and services
but the Internet, with its remarkable intertwined threads? For marketing,
we demonstrate to our clients how to use the Internet to maximize advertising,
thereby, reaching more audience. By utilizing online marketing and merchandising
techniques, we show our e-commerce merchants and advertisers how to integrate
design and back-end applications to attract, retain, and create profiles
of their online registered customers as well as promote more customized
products and services on the internet.
Web Philippines,
Inc. facilitates businesses in the local and global market scene to be
unlimited by physical boundaries such as geographical locations, time,
and redundant information. Our value added services include using the
Internet as a tool to increase the speed of response to customers and
to shorten the time-to-market and product life cycle, and maximization
of their electronic customer-based knowledge and business intelligence,
thereby improving and providing better customer relationship and streamlining
their business processes.
Web Philippines
Inc. offers integrated e-commerce solutions for our clients' high return
on investment and low total cost of ownership. Our e-commerce solutions,
in time, have come to reflect various e-commerce and e-business models,
and rich, easy-to-use, integrated features and functions for complete
business process transformation and integration in both business-to-business
and business-to-consumer architecture.
