E-Commerce Times Talkback

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Lori Enos 2001-09-26 18:54:14

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Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce is the most visible face of online purchasing: much
more prominent, if less profitable, than its big brother, business-to-business (B2B).

Unfortunately, several myths and misperceptions still exist about B2C e-commerce,
according to analysts. In this special report, the E-Commerce Times aims to dispel four
such myths.

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Barry 2001-09-28 16:20:34 In reply to: Lori Enos

One of the myths profoundly pushed is that products are less expensive on B2C sites.
I have found consistently the opposite.
An item on Ebay is on average 30% higher than the retail price here in Canada.
I laugh at the poor souls who bid $1100USD for a laptop that is 2 model years behind what is selling at the local stores for $1400CAD.
which at a currency conversion of 0.63 is only $882USD
When will competition start to bring down price?

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Lyta 2001-12-07 18:40:23 In reply to: Barry

In response to Barry, I would suggest people to visit more Canadian websites, which will encourage the B2C canadian industries. For example, videos and DVD are sold at the same price or at a lesser price (that is before the currency exchange) in Canada than in United States. For example, you find The Sopranos, 2nd season at 90 CAD in canadian sites (Amazon sells it around 75 USD).

In regards to the European perspective, maybe in Belgium you are not used to distance buying. However other European countries like in Switzerland, Germany have even stronger than US Direct mail and catalogs industries.

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: R. Moose 2001-09-27 14:35:09 In reply to: Lori Enos

For smaller stores (not mega Amazon type sites), people are afraid to shop online.

Having developed numerous sites, we see that payment options like via telephone or mail are very popular. Other people often ask if they can buy the products offline.

"E-Tail" is not just big brand name stores, it is includes little 1 sku to medium 250+ sku sites too.

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Yannick Muriat 2001-09-27 05:34:47 In reply to: Lori Enos

I'm writing from Belgium. From a European point of view I would add one more myth. B2C is not for tomorrow! B2C e-commerce adoption is very dependent on consumers' mentality. Europeans are not as used as US consumers to distance buying. Penetration rates of catalog selling and so on are much lower. It's gonna take a while before enough Internet users turn to online buying. How long? Not a clue about it.

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Samuel Tan 2001-09-26 22:04:51 In reply to: Lori Enos

I would think the most important thing that online merchants would need to know is the method of packaging the products and services in the right way.

For example, Amazon does not seems to be a heavy technology site. It is well packaged in the way that the consumer has the feeling that he is well-served at the shopping mall and completely different shopping experience.

I agree with Lori as B2C will still be around for a long time compares to B2B market. B2C is still profitable as long as the merchants have proper strategies in place and identifying the value-chained clearly.

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Dan Clements 2001-09-26 20:48:31 In reply to: Lori Enos

The statement that mainstream hasn't picked up on the all the hacks Merchants suffer is true. We try and keep these breaches between the Merchant, his aquiring bank, and the credit card associations. The sad fact is that there are about 90,000 vulnerablable IIS Merchants out there, according to the latest survey by Netcraft.

Merchants must shore up security...and the hacks will decrease.

Dan Clements
CardCops.com

Re: The Biggest Myths of E-Tail
Posted by: Jon carder 2001-09-26 20:10:46 In reply to: Lori Enos

I feel that e-commerce is a more tricky game full of gorilla marketing, performance based advertising and complete backend automation compared to branding TV ads, billboards and huge staffs of several hundred people to several thousand people. The small sites like eheaven.com that maintain low overhead and focus on controlled growth from profits will truly succeed.