Launching a Successful E-commerce Site - Essay Example

The article has been taken from the personal blog of the author and is available online at http://patricerutledge.com/e-commerce/.
Given the high risk of “dot-com” projects and the failures on the rise, many people wonder if it is worth spending their resources on new e-commerce projects or enhancing an existing site. Although new e-commerce start-ups involve a lot of risks, extending a traditional business with e-commerce capabilities can still prove to be very profitable. Besides generating additional revenues, it can enhance brand name awareness and recognition for your business. Hence if a business is planning to move towards e-commerce, the article mentions some of the strategies that they should plan to follow.

In the first step, a company needs to synchronize its strategies and make the e-commerce website fixed in the overall strategic plan. They should make sure that the physical and electronic businesses complement each other rather than compete with each other. Secondly, a business needs to analyze its competitors and look at the kind of user interface and experience they are providing to their customers. The business also needs to focus on the customers and look into the experience they need to provide to the customers. Depending on whether it is a b2b or a b2c business, the business needs to provide an appropriate interface on the website so that it is easy for visitors to use the website. Personalization is an important concept in today’s e-commerce websites.

The basic idea of personalization is to cater to the needs of every visitor individually and to make them feel. Besides this, the website should take appropriate measures to ensure safety and security on the website.
Often companies who have outsourced website development and maintenance to other companies have little or no knowledge about the underlying technologies. The article mentions that is important that companies have a know-how of the software and hardware platforms and t. It is not enough to create a website. The company also needs to promote it by publishing the website address on all its advertisement and notices. They also need to the search engine ranking of the website. Lastly, before launching the e-commerce project, the company needs to look at other similar e-commerce projects and learn from the failures.
The article has covered a very useful topic. With the rapid expansion of the World Wide Web, many companies are stepping into the e-commerce domain. There are, however, a lot of risks involved, and without proper strategies, the project may easily fail. Read More