It's not a surprise that business from all across the board in New York City, corporate to local shops, have been shifting from physical sales to digital purchasing of their products or services. More and more people are simply 'Googling' the products that they want to find online and clicking on the first online shops that see the above the fold.
This form of selling and marketing has proven to be truly effective on large and small scales for any kind of business. Ecommerce; defined as online shopping, selling, and business, has swept the world as the emerging dominant form of sales and there are many reason; especially in places like New York City where people do not have time necessarily to physically visit all of the stores they see in newspaper ads, magazines, and commercials. Yet like everything, Ecommerce can quickly become a double edged sword with both advantages and drawbacks.
With everyone shopping online in New York, businesses are shifting their products to online shopping carts; Many of this digital entrepreneurs are quickly swayed by the advantages of ecommerce. These advantages include things like:
- Being able to sell products 24/7 and make money while sleep.
- Being able to appeal to a wider audience not limited by the physical. What this means is that people do not have to live in the same city or state to buy your products
- The ability to use ecommerce as a marketing tool to a businesses name out into the world to drive more sales and game to a company or business.
- Speed. Much to my personal dismay, computers seem to not only be able to think faster than humans, but they can sell products faster tool.
- Effort. Much of the effort of having to ring up a customer, fill out their information, and serve the customer are stripped away and essentially put on the customer themselves. This is also known as self service.
All of these advantages however seem to cover up the most obvious disadvantages despite their over-reaching repercussions. Drawbacks such as the ones listed below could destroy a business if they ever occurred.
- 100% online businesses rely on platforms, servers, and technology that can crash at any point in time rendering the business useless.
- Online sales completely take away the personality that you get from human interaction. These human interactions sometimes drive sales up and open new leads
- Lawsuits. Ecommerce websites are vulnerable (no matter what people say) to hacking and digital theft which will leave you and your business wide open for lawsuits if any of your customers suspect this happened because of purchasing something through your website.
The disadvantages could go on for pages, but those three should get across the point that ecommerce web design can be a tricky business for some people. Yet New York consumers and retailers do not seem to pay any attention to the disadvantages and continue to shop and sell online.
Source by Fred McCoy
