E-Shopping

Just as email has to come to dominate our lives in communication with everyone around the globe, e-commerce is fast emerging as a way of transactions between parties doing business nationally and internationally. Let's just take a look about generally how e-shopping works from a layman's point of view. Got it. With a bit of techy stuff-as they say no food-good food-is complete without salt!!! Let's have an overview of general overall understanding.

Customer's point of view (you and me)

An Internet based retail business is similar to the mail order business, where you are required to select the product(s) you are interested in buying and how many of them you will need.

The difference is that instead of mailing the selected product list along with your cheque or credit card number, you type your credit card number and click "buy" with your mouse.

For instance, consider the online bookstore www.anybookstore.com . If you want to buy a book online, all you have to do is surf its website. Check out its various categories regarding the title of the book, the author of a book, search them and finally -bang-you have got your book!!

Once you have found the book, all you have to do is click the "Add to shopping cart" button. Just like a real shopping cart. Then you can search for more books and keep adding it to your shopping cart, and once you are finished with your heavy duty shopping, you can select "Done".

Finally to purchase your order, enter details like your name, address and most importantly your credit card number. Then submit it.

Once this is done, the computer running the website verifies your credit card number on to a credit card verification service following which your order is processed. For security reasons the data transfer between your web browser, the anybookstore.com web server and credit card verification service is "encrypted" to protect all parties against fraud.

Hey don't get scared, new technology has almost eliminated the possibilities of fraudulent activities. So cheer up!! Sit at home and enjoy the power and the pleasure of the Net.

Web site owner's point of view.



As you can see from the above example, in order to set up shop online you need to look at the following issues:

ü Products you want to sell - The consumers you are targeting at with the various types of products to be put up in your site.
ü The logistics of delivering the products-the system of delivering the products- i.e. setting up the proper delivery system with tie ups with courier companies.
ü A suitable name for your online shop- a catchy and a meaningful name for your web site which would have a long-lasting impression on the people.
ü A web server to put up your website-The configurations and the technicalities based on the web server , which would support your website.
ü A credit card verification service- is now responsible for the transfer of money from customer's bank account to your website account for the purchases.
ü An account where the proceeds of sales can be transferred to.-A simple process. Which is to identify the your bank i.e. Citibank, HSBC, Standard chartered etc.

There are two ways of going about putting the lot together. An easy way out is to open your shop within an Internet shopping mall. This is equivalent of renting space and opening a shop in a shopping complex like Cannaught Place in New Delhi. The alternative is to set up your online shop independently.

Technicalities:

Once you have figured out what you plan to sell and whether you plan to sell locally or go international it's time to go on the net. To begin with, you need to have a suitable name for your online venture and a Web server to put it on and also the credit verification service.

On the Internet, computers and Web pages are identified by a set of unique numbers called IP(Internet protocol) number. These numbers prove to be a convenient way for computers on the Internet to identify each other, it is not possible for humans to remember the IP address's of each and every website. This problem is solved by domain naming system (DNS)where a name like www.any_store.com is associated with an IP number.

Thus to access a web site. All a web surfer has to do is enter this name in the Web browser which he may use. In short it can be said that this name is the identity of Shopping mall the company/person is putting up in the Internet.

Money Matters:



After finding a suitable home for your shop on the Net, you need to find a credit card verification service which will also transfer money from the customer's account to the website's account. This is where you start running against a wall called Law.
I n Case of India, As a resident Indian, Indian laws forbid you to open an account abroad~~ Unless you have a business abroad that earns you dollars ~~.

At the same time ,IN the U.S American credit card verification services do not transfer money to accounts in banks outside U.S. In simple words, you cannot have an account to which you can credit the proceeds of your online sales. Temporary until now.
The situation is no better in India . Credit card transactions without a signature is forbidden in the country which has become a sort of a ritual.

The Way Out:

What you could possibly do is find a friend or a relative who is willing to open an account to which the proceeds from your sales can be credited. Or alternatively get into a partnership with your Web hosting company to accept money on your behalf. After collecting money on your behalf, they can then transfer money to you on a weekly / monthly basis. But this also has its slight effects -You will have to offer them commission, besides bearing a loss of some money in inter bank transfer which cannot be avoided.

If you cannot find someone to accept orders online, you should restrict yourself to sell the products within the country as it will solve your credit card issues as you will be able to collect cash on delivery from your customer. Almost all the sites have the facility to pay cash /cheque on delivery.

Now that you have all the pieces of the puzzle together, all that needs to be done is to get them together. If you are Net savvy enough you could build up your Website all by yourself. Or you could pay someone to do it for you. The choice is yours!!



However just setting up your shop online doesn't mean that you are done with it and Web surfers will come flocking to your little store. How would they know?
They cannot unless they know your store exists. And for them to know of your existence you have to promote your store both on and off the Net. Marketing and awareness is the in thing to be done... So get started…….