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Leveraging the competitive value of the Internet Physical inventories have always been a major cost component of business. Linking to suppliers in real time dramatically enhances the classic goal of inventory “turn. ” The Internet provides a multitude of opportunities for radically reducing the costs of designing, manufacturing, and selling goods and services. E-mango. com, a fruit emarketplace, must take advantage of these opportunities or find itself at a significant competitive disadvantage. Identify the disadvantages that confront E-mango. om if it does not leverage the competitive value of the Internet. Case study Considering that E-mango. com is an online store and it also has a small store outlet which provides all kinds of fruits. a. Fresh fruits b. Dry fruits c. Fruit products such as jams, jellies, fruit syrup etc. In today’s world Internet has become a major source for marketing. Ebusiness is the conducting of business on the Internet, not only buying and selling, but also serving customers and collaborating with business partners.
Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers. Each and every business are now marketing their business through Internet, as it save time and cost and reaches a large number of customers in short span of time If Emango. com is not using the trends of today’s world i. e. if the website is not making use of the various facilities in the Internet for marketing their goods then they may have to face lot of challenges.
Being a fruit emarketplace, the goods need to be sold out as soon as possible. It also has other competitors who own a fruit emarketplace which makes it difficult to survive. Internet could provide a lot of advantages such as managing the cost, produce profit by the people visiting the website, reach to a lot of people and thus increase the business, provide an e-catalog for the customers thus enabling them to shop easier etc. The costs of not doing e-business include loss of customers to competitors with good websites and loss of potential revenue.
The major areas affected without proper use of Internet in Business has been listed. 1. Convenience A visit to a store requires travel and must take place during business hours whereas online stores are available 24 hours a day, where business could be made at any hour of the day. Nowadays Internet access is available at home and office, so shopping would be easier if they are able to shop online. Online stores would be having e-catalog which provides the pictures and prices of the goods available which increases customers ease for shopping.
Without a proper website maintained, customers need to come to the stores and search for the fruits, which is time consuming and this would initiate a customer to buy goods through another store which has a well maintained website. The websites will also be having pop-ups of the clearance and the deals for the day which will attract more customers. There are also online transactions which are fast. It can help improve the speed and accuracy of transactions. So as long as there is no proper usage of Internet the income would be less as customers would move to stores which provides a good business .
The advantage of having a well maintained website is also that they can display pictures of fruits along with their nutritional benefits and how they contribute to the health, which fruit would taste good as juice and which would taste good as raw etc. Along with business customers would be able to gain a lot of information’s also, thus the competition for emango. com would always be high. Customers would prefer a better online business which is provided by others. 2. Cost-Effective Marketing and Promotion Using the web to market products guarantees to reach large number of customers at a nominal price.
The cost of conducting business in Internet is substantially smaller than the traditional forms of business communication. Advertising techniques like pay per click advertising ensure that the advertiser only pays for the advertisements that are actually viewed. As it is fruit store only dry fruits and fruit products need to ship to far distances. Most of the shipment would be around the local area thus it is cost effective(the local shipment would be similar to that of pap johns). Customers would prefer to have such an online store. The fruits could be bought in bulk or in small quantity. All these could be lacking for the emango. om thus causing loss. The emango. com would not be able to reach its customers and market in an easier way than the Internet. 3. Customer Service Customer service is the most important factor in every business. With an online service the supplier could provide an improved customer service. As the customer enters the website they could be greeted by a pop-up chat window. Many websites now provide an online chat, where the customers could chat with a customer care executive and clarify all the doubts about the products or any other details. Even the customer could contact the customer service executive through phone which is a 24×7 service.
Making customers happy is the important factor for improving the business and to gain benefits. All these customer services could not be provided if the Internet is not being utilized. 4. Selection The main advantage of a website is being able to quickly seek out deals for items or services. The deals and discounts could also be viewed as soon as we enter the website. Electronic catalogs and web pages present customers with updated information in real time about goods, services and prices. As with other aspects of ebusiness, it is important to match electronic catalog design and functionality to a company’s business goals.
This ease of ecatalogs cannot be provided without proper use on Internet. 5. Reviews The customers could provide the reviews about the products in the website, which would help to know the views of customer and improve the business. Also with the Internet, it’s easier to summarize and analyze information about customers visiting and buying the website. This information can be used to modify promotional strategies to maximize sales. If there is no proper use of Internet this would not be possible. The rivalry for the E-mango. com is high as it they are not properlyusing the Internet for the better business.
The competitors would gain high profit with a better website and better e-business technology. Thus the website e-mango. com needs to enhance itself with the various techniques provided by the internet to attract customers and increase profit. Waiting too long to move in to the track of e-business may cause E-mango. com to lose its place in line entirely. References http://e-business-guide. net/advantages-internet-business-explained. html http://onlinebusiness. volusion. com/articles/e-business-advantages/ http://www. enetsc. com/ebusinessarticles. html