The Future of eCommerce
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by
Riyaj Shaik
The Internet
can have an even larger impact on smaller companies, which typically do not face
the same infrastructure difficulties of larger firms. A small company that includes
the Internet in its business model can achieve greater market share and visibility
and can reach new markets more effectively.
In the study,
small businesses with annual revenues of less than $10 million saw average improvements
of 40 percent to 50 percent in financial performance.
The U.S.
Department of Commerce has also released statistics, which document the increasing
impact of eBusiness on our lives. The online sales figures for the third quarter
indicate that total online retail sales reached nearly $6.4 billion for the quarter
ended Sept. 30. That's a 15.3 percent increase from the previous quarter, and
the biggest increase since the department started tracking eCommerce numbers a
year ago.
It is uncertain what the sales growth actually means.
Does it indicate that the number of online shoppers has increased, or does it
show that shoppers have simply become more comfortable purchasing big-ticket items?
The fact that auto dealing is the second fastest-growing segment hints at the
latter.
These figures also indicated that pure-play Internet
retailers are lagging behind their mail-order and bricks-and-clicks counterparts.
And despite its healthy growth, e-commerce sales still represented less than 1
percent of the $812 billion in overall retail sales for the quarter.
