Myself and a group of friends from college have decided to set up a mail order cosmetics company. The company will produce, market and sell its own range of cosmetics aimed at the age group of 18 – 30 for both male and female. Part of my role in this new company is to produce a plan on how a business could introduce E-commerce. Introduction To E-Commerce

E-Commerce is the exchange of information across electronic networks, at any stage in the supply chain. It can be done within an organisation, between businesses and to businesses to consumers. It can also be carried out between the public and private sectors, whether paid or unpaid. The growth of e-commerce is mainly down to the business opportunities that it can bring to the company.

Why A Business Should Develop E-Commerce Businesses should develop e commerce in their organisation, as it will have many benefits to the company as a whole. On the other hand, when a company carries out this feature, there are also barriers that they will have to overcome. These are both outlined below.Some business trade only on the Internet, an example of this type of company is WWW.LETSBUYIT.COM.

Others will just use it as one of many sales channels, an example of a company this type is a supermarket, travel agents etc. A businesses involvement in E-commerce may be progressive, for example a business may start using the web, to advertise their products, then slowly move towards providing a service, which allows customers to buy their products online.

Business buying online is known as e-procurement and forms part of supply chain management. The supply chain management includes:Most businesses that are not successful in their E-commerce strategy fail because of poor distribution systems or stock levels that cannot cope with demand. Both of these factors may be the result of the company not forecasting properly.