E-Commerce has following unique Features
1.
Ubiquity
2.
Global reach
3.
Universal standards
4.
Information richness
5.
Interactivity
6.
Customization
7.
Social Technology
1. Ubiquity
In traditional
commerce, a marketplace is a physical place you visit in order to transact.
For instance, television and radio typically motivate the consumer to go
someplace to make a purchase. E-Commerce, in contrast,
is characterized by its ubiquity: it is obtainable just about everywhere, at
each and every one time. It liberates the market from being restricted to a
physical space and makes it feasible to shop from your desktop, at home, at
work, or even from your car, using mobile commerce.
The result is called a market space which is a marketplace extended
beyond conventional, customary & traditional boundaries and removed from a
temporal and geographic location. From a consumer point of view, ubiquity reduces
transaction costs which are the costs of participating in a market. To
transact, it is no longer necessary that you spend time and capital traveling
to a market. At a broader level, the ubiquity of E-Commerce lowers the
cognitive energy required to transact in a market space. Cognitive energy
refers to the mental effort required to complete a task. Humans generally seek
to reduce cognitive energy outlays. While given a choice, humans will choose
the path requiring the least effort the most convenient path.
2. Global Reach
E-Commerce
technology permits commercial transactions to cross cultural and national
boundaries far more conveniently and cost-efficient and effectively than is
true in conventional, customary & traditional commerce. As a result, the potential
market size for E-Commerce merchants is roughly equal to the size of the
world’s online population (over 1 billion in 2005, and grow rapidly, according
to the Computer Industry Almanac). The total number
of users or consumers an E-Commerce business
can obtain is a measure of its reach.
In contrast, most traditional
commerce is local or regional-it involves local merchants or national merchants
with local outlets. Television and radio stations, and newspapers, for
instance, are primarily local and regional institutions with limited but
powerful national networks that can attract national addressees. In contrast to
E-Commerce technology, these older commerce technologies do not easily cross
national boundaries to global addressees.
Universal Standards
One strikingly unusual feature of E-Commerce technologies is that
the technical standards of the Internet, and therefore the technical standards
for conducting E-Commerce, are universal standards-they are shared by each and
every one nation around the world. In contrast, most conventional, technologies
differ from one nation to the next. For instance, television and radio
standards differ around the world, as does cell telephone technology.
The universal
technical standards of the Internet and E-Commerce greatly
lower market entry costs-the cost merchants must pay just to bring their goods
to market. At the same time, for consumers, universal standards reduce search
costs-the effort required one-world market space, where prices and product
descriptions can be inexpensively displayed for each and every one to see,
price discovery becomes simpler, faster, and more accurate.
4.
Richness
One of the major Seven Unique
Features of E-Commerce is Information richness refers to the complexity and
content of a message. Conventional, customary & traditional markets,
national sales forces, and small retail stores have great richness; they are
able to make obtainable and provide personal, face-to-face service using aural
and visual cues while making a sale. The richness of conventional, customary
& traditional markets makes them a powerful selling or commercial
environment. Prior to the development of the Web, there was a trade-off between
richness and reach: the larger the addressees reached the less rich the
message.
5. Interactivity
Unlike any of the commercial technologies of the twentieth century,
with the feasible exception of the telephone, E-Commerce technologies allow for
interactivity, meaning they enable two-way communication between merchant and
consumer. Television, for instance, cannot ask viewers any questions or enter
into conversations with them, and it cannot request that consumer information
be entered into a form. In contrast, each and every one of these activities is
feasible on an E-Commerce Website. Interactivity allow online merchant to engage a consumer in ways similar
to a face-to-face know-how, but on a much more massive, global scale.
6. Information Density as One of the major
Seven Unique Features of E-Commerce
The Internet and the Web vastly amplify and raise information
density-the total amount and quality of information obtainable to each and
every one market participants, consumers, and merchants alike. E-Commerce
technologies reduce information collection, storage, processing, and
communication costs. At the same time, these technologies amplify and raise
greatly the currency, accuracy, and timeliness of information-making
information more useful and important than ever. As a result, information
becomes more plentiful, less expensive, and of higher quality.
A number of business
consequences result from grow up in information density. In E-Commerce markets, prices and
costs become more transparent. Price transparency refers to the ease with which
consumers can discover and locate out the variety of prices in a market; cost
transparency refers to the ability of consumers to discover the actual costs
merchants pay for goods. But there are advantages for merchants as well. Online
merchants can discover much more about consumers; this allows merchants to
segment the market into groups willing to pay different prices and permits them
to engage in price discrimination which is like selling the same goods, or
nearly the same goods, to different targeted groups at different prices. For instance, an online
merchant can discover a consumer’s avid interest in expensive exotic vacations,
and then pitch expensive exotic vacation plans to that consumer at a premium
price, knowing this person is willing to pay extra for such a vacation. At the
same time, the online merchant can pitch the same vacation plan at a lower
price to more price-sensitive consumers. Merchants also have enhanced abilities
to differentiate their goods & services in terms of cost, brand, and
quality.
7. Personalization/Customization
One of the major
Seven Unique Features of E-Commerce is E-Commerce technologies
permit personalization: merchants can target their marketing messages to
specific individuals by adjusting the message to a person’s name, interests,
and past purchases. The technology also permits customization which is like
changing the delivered product or service based on a user’s preferences or
prior behavior. Given the interactive nature of E-Commerce technology, much
information about the consumer can be gathered in the marketplace at the moment
of purchase. With the amplify and raise in information density, a great deal of
information about the consumer’s past purchases and behavior can be stored and
used by online merchants.
The result is a level of personalization and customization
unthinkable with existing commerce technologies. For instance, you may be able
to shape what you see on television by selecting a channel; but you cannot
change the contents of the channel you have chosen. In contrast, the online
version of the Wall Street Journal allows you to select the type of news
stories you want to see first; and provides you the prospect to be alerted
while certain incidents happen.