Disadvantages of E-Commerce

Some disadvantages and constraints of e-commerce include the following.

1. It is possible to visit a local music store and walk out with a compact disc or a bookstore and leave with a book. E-commerce is often used to buy goods that are not available locally from businesses all over the world, meaning that physical goods need to be delivered, which takes time and costs money.

2. Unable to Examine Products Personally: If we buy products through the internet, we are not able to examine the products physically and the quality of the product. Images of the products may be available for viewing. But we can’t buy the product by seeing the image on the internet. There is a risk involved in the quality of the product that the consumer is purchasing.

3. The biggest disadvantage of e-commerce is the issue of security. Even with the improvements with data encryption, there is still the danger of someone getting a hold of your personal and financial information. If someone gets your credit card, they can go to one of these sites and purchase items without proving who they are. All they need is your name and credit card number which is already printed on the card.

4. Reduced marketing/advertising expenses compete on equal footing with much bigger companies; easily compete on quality, price, and availability.

5. The Internet is an effective conduit for visual and auditory information: seeing pictures, hearing sounds and reading text. However it does not allow full scope for our senses: we can see pictures of the flowers, but not smell their fragrance; we can see pictures of a hammer, but not feel its weight or balance. Further, when we pick up and inspect something, we choose what we look at and how we look at it. This is not the case on the Internet. If we were looking at buying a car on the Internet, we would see the pictures the seller had chosen for us to see but not the things we might look for if we were able to see it in person. And, taking into account our other senses, we can't test the car to hear the sound of the engine as it changes gears or sense the smell and feel of the leather seats. There are many ways in which the Internet does not convey the richness of experiences of the world. This lack of sensory information means that people are often much more comfortable buying via the Internet generic goods - things that they have seen or experienced before and about which there is little ambiguity, rather than unique or complex things.

6. Normally, customer will only limit to certain area.

7. The company needs well-skilled and trained workers to maintain and create the ecommerce facilities of the company. Many companies prefer to outsource their development and programming tasks to decrease labor costs.

8. A company can have a website and exist within the Internet but there may not be enough people visiting the site and purchasing services or products from the company. The Internet provides less expensive advertising but also because of its sheer vastness and the existence of websites of established businesses, it is critical to create a website that is “sticky” enough to attract market share and create loyalty among the acquired market share.

Smartimes Inc. is a ten year veteran developer of custom and packaged e-commerce websites with a customer base from coast to coast. We provide the technology and support to help small and medium businesses build and grow a successful online e-commerce presence. For more information on how Smartime can help you be successful on the e-commerce, contact http://www.smartimeinc.com.