E-commerce and associated important strategic issues?

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1. Before launching an e-commerce effort, entrepreneurs should consider the following important strategic issues:
2. Success requires a company to develop a plan for integrating the Internet into its overall business strategy. 
3. The plan should address issues such as Web site design and maintenance, creating and managing a brand name, marketing and promotional strategies, sales, and customer service.
4. . Developing deep, lasting relationships with customers takes on even greater importance on the Internet.
5.  Attracting online customers costs money, and companies must be able to retain their online customers to make their Web sites profitable. That means that online companies must give their customers good reasons to keep coming back.
6. . Creating a meaningful presence on the Internet requires an ongoing investment of  following  resources 
7.       Time
8.        money
9.        energy and talent.
10.  Establishing an attractive Web site brimming with catchy photographs and descriptions of products is only the beginning.
11.  Measuring the success of its Internet-based sales effort is essential if a company is to
12.  remain relevant to customers whose tastes, needs, and preferences are always changing. Continuously improve a Web site is essential.
13. 5. Doing business on the Internet takes more time and energy than many entrepreneurs expect

The following six factors are essential to achieving e-commerce success:

• Acquiring customers.
• Optimizing conversions.
• Maximizing Web site performance.
• Ensuring a positive user experience.
• Retaining customers.
• Use Web analytics as part of a cycle of continuous improvement.

Acquiring customers

The first e-commerce skill that entrepreneurs must master is acquiring customers, which requires them to drive traffic to their Web sites. 

Entrepreneurs must develop a strategy for using the many available tools, which range from display ads and Google Adwords to social media and search marketing.

Optimizing conversions

Every online entrepreneur’s goal is to convert Web site visitors into paying customers. The efficiency with which an online company achieves this goal plays a significant role in determining its profitability. Unfortunately, more than 97 percent of visitors to the typical retail Web site do not purchase anything.

Maximizing Web site performance

Once shoppers find a company’s Web site, they should encounter a site that downloads quickly, is easy to navigate, and contains meaningful content they can find quickly and efficiently. A fast, simple checkout process also is essential. Otherwise, shoppers will abandon the site, never to return.

Ensuring a positive user experience

Achieving customer satisfaction online is just as important as it is offline. Visitors who are satisfied with a site are 71 percent more likely to purchase from the site (and 67 percent more likely to purchase in the future) than visitors who are dissatisfied. 

Retaining customers

One study reports that increasing customer retention by 2 percent produces the same financial impact as reducing costs by 10 percent.

 Entrepreneurs must create an online shopping experience that engages customers, offers them value, and provides them with convenience.

Use Web analytics as part of a cycle of continuous improvement

Entrepreneurs have a multitude of Web analytics tools (many of them free) that they can use to analyze the performance and effectiveness of their Web sites.

 Unfortunately, a survey conducted by The Incyte Group and Site Apps reports that 75 percent of small business owners do not use analytics tools to measure their Websites performance.

Methods of online payment

Credit cards constitute a popular method of online payment but can be expensive for the merchant to accept because of transaction fees primarily. Debit cards constitute an excellent alternative with similar security but usually much cheaper charges. Besides card-based payments, other forms of payment have emerged and sometimes even claimed market leadership. Wallets like PayPal and Alipay are playing major roles in the ecosystem. Bitcoin payment processors are a cheaper alternative for accepting payments online which also offer better protection from fraud.

Net banking

This is a system, well known in India, that does not involve any sort of physical card. It is used by customers who have accounts enabled with Internet banking. Instead of entering card details on the purchaser's site, in this system the payment gateway allows one to specify which bank they wish to pay from. Then the user is redirected to the bank's website, where one can authenticate oneself and then approve the payment. Typically there will also be some form of two-factor authentication.

It is typically seen as being safer than using credit cards, with the result that nearly all merchant accounts in India offer it as an option.

A very similar system, known as iDEAL, is popular in the Netherlands.

PayPal

PayPal is a global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as cheques and money orders. It is subject to the US economic sanction list and other rules and interventions required by US laws or government. PayPal is an acquirer, a performing payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received. The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type. In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies. On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay. Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Scottsdale, Charlotte and Austin in the United States; Chennai in India; Dublin in Ireland; Berlin in Germany; and Tel Aviv in Israel. From July 2007, PayPal has operated across the European Union as a Luxembourg-based bank

Paymentwall

Paymentwall, an e-commerce solutions providing company launched in 2010, offers a wide range of online payment methods that its clients can integrate on their website.

Google Wallet

Google Wallet was launched in 2011, serving a similar function as PayPal to facilitate payments and transfer money online. It also features a security that has not been cracked to date[when?], and the ability to send payments as attachments via email.

Mobile Money Wallets

In developing countries the banked population is very less, especially in tier II and tier III cities. Taking the example of India, there are more mobile phone users than there are people with active bank accounts. Telecom operators, in such geographies, have started offering mobile money wallets which allows adding funds easily through their existing mobile subscription number, by visiting physical recharge points close to their homes and offices and converting their cash into mobile wallet currency. This can be used for online transaction and eCommerce purchases. Many payment options such as Airtel Money and M-Pesa in Kenya , ATW are being accepted as alternate payment options on various eCommerce websites.Courtesy of wikipedia...