Summary:
This article explores the areas of e-commerce and e-procurement as they relate to businesses and customers. It lists many benefits as well as a few challenges.

Details or Sample:
In the last few years, the practices of e-procurement and e-commerce have changed the course of businesses everywhere. Not long ago, the purchasing of supplies, services and merchandise was exclusively accomplished through phone calls, catalog orders, and personal sales visits. Online purchasing options, however, have opened up many new choices for companies as well as customers. At this point in time, one can buy almost anything electronically.

Obviously, every company must make purchases. E-procurement, or the process of supplier exchange, provides a way for businesses to reduce costs and find significant savings.

A purchase that is not made online usually must pass through many hands in order to be approved, documented, filed, etc. The obvious result is a longer waiting period for ordered materials. Because of the complications of manually processing purchase orders and other paperwork, switching to online business transactions can reduce both the cost and time spent on the ordering process. Rather than using their workdays to print, fax, or mail documents, purchasers can use this saved time to create and maintain business relationships with suppliers...

... also send follow up emails to their customers. This is another way to keep in contact and have positive interaction without needing to employ many customer service representatives. Additionally, much more information is available to customers online. This information includes things like the status of a person’s order, a list of frequently asked questions, or shipment tracking. All of these things can be relayed through email, again, saving the sales company a lot of unnecessary expense in the way of customer service telephone calls.

Customers who shop online can search a website’s catalog for exactly what they need. There is much more information available to them than what would be able to fit in a traditional paper catalog. E-commerce also enables a business to make more sales offers to its purchasers. By listing related available items for customers, or showing items that others have purchased in conjunction with the item being bought, a company is much more likely to reap additional sales without much effort.

Another advantage of E-commerce is the opportunity for customers to shop over a longer period of time, if they prefer...

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Downloads: 1
Written by: Jill Moore
Available File Types:Text
Words: 750