Ecommerce also known as electronic commerce is the conduct of financial transactions by electronic means. For business, ecommerce means, carrying out of financial transactions and other businesses pertaining to the financial aspect of the business. With the growth of commerce and trade technology advances a lot and hence now the technology is helping the businesses worldwide to advance a lot. One of the reasons for the growth of these businesses is ecommerce. As it is internet broke all the boundaries of distance and time.

After internet came businesses spread worldwide like wild fire. Now a person can conduct business being present anywhere in the world to any part of the world. In simple words we can say that ecommerce is the carrying out of commerce on the web. Making purchases from online stores is nothing but ecommerce. Businesses worldwide are making use of ecommerce to expand their business and also they are trying to make a lot of money out of it. However there are particular ecommerce solutions for businesses in order to run the business effectively.

Ecommerce solutions:

With the increase in demand for online buying and selling, the importance of ecommerce has grown over time. So it has become really important to understand the importance of ecommerce solutions and also to incorporate the same in the businesses. Ecommerce basically either adds to your website or it creates a new one from a scratch.

Most of the businesses tend to make their own websites. There are several reasons for that but one of the most compelling reasons is the fact that it serves as an extremely cost-effective distribution channel for the products of any business. You dont need to go and sell door to door. Neither you need to advertise in each and every country where you want to sell your product. There are many companies, which will assist the business owners in designing and implementing customized ecommerce capabilities into the web site that will provide control, which in turn will give the flexibility that every business owners want.

There are several factors because of which ecommerce has been able to give success to various businesses. Some of the factors are: -

1. Ecommerce solutions are also not spared of the natural market forces like the forces of demand and supply. So even in case of ecommerce strategic planning of the business activities is involved.

2. If one has a good management team in his business who have good knowledge about information technology strategy then it becomes all the more beneficial. They can add much to the business by applying their skills.

3. Now through ecommerce the customers also get a very secured way of transacting. As credit cards are the most popular means of payment on the internet, so it gives a secured way of transaction to both the customer and the company.

4. Parallel servers, hardware redundancy, information encryption and firewalls make ecommerce solutions for business all the more reliable and secured. By this a customer can have a pure private purchase, without disclosing his/her personal details to anyone.

5. Moreover, ecommerce ensures that all employees, suppliers and partners have a complete and the same view of the customer. It adds to the customer relationship aspect of the business.

6. Ecommerce not only provides a complete understanding of the products or the services offered but also provides the complete product information. You also get advices from some advisors and selectors.

7. By using colorful graphics, animations, photographs, fonts etc. you can make your website as much attractive as you can. So definitely it will attract more customers and will help your business to grow.

8. Last but not the least your business will also move ahead along with the technology, thereby giving you an edge over other businesses. You will be able to reach out to far off customers, which you cant even think of doing physically. So may be at particular place your business has a great appeal. Thus though you are not benefiting much in the place where you have set up your business you can definitely have a demand somewhere else of your business.

Factors affecting ecommerce applications:

We can find many ecommerce applications that are present in the market. But there are certain factors that actually affect and determine the price of an ecommerce application. So you would have to take care of these factors while finding an ecommerce solution for your business. These factors are: -

1. Usage The first factor is the amount of results that we are going to receive from the use of the ecommerce application. In other words how much usage are we going to make of the ecommerce application If we are going to make huge revenues out of that then a good and reliable ecommerce application will be advisable, though it may be a little costly. On the other hand if your business is only adding ecommerce, as its extra feature then you need be so specific in your ecommerce application.

2. Exposure needed Now the selection of the ecommerce application depends upon the extent of exposure needed by the company. This will determine the need for the amount of money to be expended on the ecommerce application.

3. Existing Merchant account If you have an existing merchant account then you already have the means to run your business worldwide. But such business can be carried out only through personal contacts. Therefore you would require ecommerce applications only to advertise your business. In other words you will need only certain features of these applications. So you need not invest much.

So by applying ecommerce to our business we can gear our business to reach the impossible. But at the same time it is also necessary that we chose the solution as per our requirements and also as per our needs, so that we dont invest much and reap less. By carefully choosing the ecommerce solution for the business one can definitely make huge revenues and can also expand the business.