E-commerce, yet another term that is often used and rarely understood. Online sales and stores have been around for a while and there have been some successes, mostly being trumped by the likes of amazon and ebay.

The key to being successful in an online sales environment is to use the tools and services that are around you effectively to enhance your online store with additional income streams.

There is an important distinction when it comes to deciding on a strategy for online sales.. Is it  real product seeking a local market? Or is it a digital product seeking a global market?

Real product or local service

Instant connection can be made with the website of a vendor who is perceived to be close to or in the same city as the visitor.  These are repeat customers who will appreciate a simple standardized ordering process. There is often a big opportunity where your business can gain by consolidating customer relationship and ordering processes into a web and mobile enabled flow.

Online and Digital Sales

Some products and industries prime source of revenue is derived from internet sales of one kind or another.  The advantage to digital sales is that costs do not increase necessarily with scale, so although your product or service be awash in much more competition than the local market, the upper limit of potential for success could be significantly higher.

Much of traditional advertising revenue is having a hard time keeping up with the shifting ways people use and consume media.  The market is poised to jump on new forms of media and interface and remain in general very optimistic and excited about online commerce.  If an genuine value is added to people consumer pattern then they will pay for the service often with subscription or micro payment.

Online payments is not E-commerce.  it’s only ‘e’ part of it.  What makes e-commerce work is when it adds value to an existing chain of bricks and mortar business or when it offers products that are not available anywhere else.

The day to day aspect of running a online business is not that different from traditional business, only there are more tools available to make it more profitable for companies who are willing to try new ways, and who have knowledgeable support in making changes.

We have built many solutions using Paypal and other online credit processing providers, generally preferring a minimal approach by tying core site transactions into a given Application service interface or other means of electronic data exchange.