Electronic commerce consists of the purchase and sale of products or services between individuals and companies through electronic means such as the Internet, however a considerable percentage of electronic commerce consists of the acquisition of virtual items (mostly software and derivatives), such as accessing "premium" content on a website.
Our role as clients.
Currently we live in a world where information is just a click away, where traditional Marketing strategies are less effective every day and we return to DBB advertising (by word of mouth) but the big difference between recommending a product before and now is that you used to tell your friends now with a click you say I like it. Before there was not such a great diversity of articles because we adapted to what existed in local stores and malls, now we have Mercadolibre and Plaza Vip to name a few, but the truth is that with the internet we have millions of products and services different from within a few clicks and without leaving home.
We can buy from a book (Amazon.com, Elsotano.com, Ghandi.com.mx), to electronic invoicing services (iemprendedora.com) or IP telephony (skype.com), we can also ask for the super (superama.com.mx) and maybe buy a delicious original Munich beer (beersgourmet.com.mx), you could spend many pages making comparisons and giving ideas, but that is not the case; what really concerns us is that as consumers there is an almost infinite offer of products and services that are sold and distributed through the internet and it is of utmost importance that we know how to choose among the perhaps hundreds of suppliers is that they market the item we want and The question might be, How do I choose who to buy from?
That task can be defined in the following:
In electronic stores:
• Look for the supplier to provide you with the amount of information you need about the product.
• Check warranty, sale and shipping policies.
• Find the provider that is closest to your location.
• Read the privacy policies of your data.
• Check what payment options you have.
• Request an invoice for your product, if you are not invoiced, doubt.
If you have made the decision to buy from a supplier X, check the following.
1. When you access the screen where you must give your data, such as address, credit card number or tax data, be a secure page. This is verified by observing that the address bar begins as follows: "https: //" note that it should not be "http: //" or a closed padlock will appear at the bottom right of Internet Explorer, in other browsers such as Chrome appears in the address bar on the right side. Locate the padlock, right-click and click on details of the certificate or certificate information, a window will appear telling us the company that issues it, the company that owns it and its validity; For your purchase to be safe, the certificate must be valid.
2. Read in detail the instructions so that the operation is safe, all sites have this information, if you do not have it in sight ask your questions before buying.
3. Make sure to fill in all the required fields with your true information, otherwise difficulties may arise with your payment or with the delivery of the product.
4. If you have the option to pay through Paypal or Dineromail use them, they have good promotions and there is a very high level of security.
If you make your purchase at Mercadolibre, Plaza Vip or Ebay:
Mercadolibre, Plaza Vip or Ebay are communities through which anyone can sell or buy, so you must be aware that most of the time you will subtract buying from people like you or me and I recommend you follow the following measures.
1. Check the reputation of the seller, the recommended is + 85% of positive operations.
2. Check if you are a marketer, since this badge is provided by ML to users with experience selling on the site.
3. If you are not a marketer, check the comments of the users who have bought with it and decide.
4. Solve all your doubts regarding the product.
5. Solve all your doubts regarding sales policies, this includes payment methods.
6. Check the shipping policies, such as company, cost and type of guides, generally packages such as Estafeta or Multipack are used for their affordable cost, speed and reliability.
7. If you decide to buy, contact your seller immediately, they will send you the instructions to follow.
8. Once you have made your payment, ask the seller to send you the guide number so that you can track your product.
9. Once you receive your package, don't forget to rate your ML shopping experience.
10. If the seller is new to ML, try to use the Mercadopago tool to guarantee that your operation goes well.
If we want to start online sales.
Starting in internet sales is not easy, although it seems so since, like any business, we must plant and cultivate it with great care and above all, provide it with the necessary attention, likewise never promise something that you will not be able to fulfill, as that may be the end. of your sales on the net and why the internet is noble for sales if we let you down we close all doors.
If you want to make your first foray into internet sales, I recommend using the Mercadolibre platform as it offers tips and online courses that will be very useful to us, we will gain experience and we will begin to know e-commerce about the practice.
Well, in the event that you want to have your own electronic store, the basic thing to consider is the following.
1. What do we want to sell?
2. Who are we going to sell to?
3. Where will I sell it to?
4. How much competition will I have?
5. Why should they buy from me and not from my competition?
6. What resources do I have?
Once we have answered each of these questions and their answer is clear and without vices we can move on to the phase in which according to our resources we must choose which platform we will use.
Today there are many platforms for online stores but we must choose the one that best suits our needs; personally within the wide range of platforms for sale (shopping carts) I choose Cubecart since it is a very complete platform where we can customize every aspect of it and has a very simple administration panel, allows the use of SSL (certificates security), plugins and manages very simple and manageable databases, its configuration is based on PhP and MySql.
Here is a list of shopping carts:
1. Joomla + Virtue mart.
2. Magento.
3. Os commerce (Not highly recommended).
4. Php cart.
5. Php shop.
6. Presta shop
7. Zen cart.
Now we must bear in mind that the configuration and installation of each of these packages will not be easy if we do not know a bit of programming in Php and Html, so I recommend that you hire someone or study the subject.
Selling in our own store requires a great organization, as I said before, but if we really want to sell, we must make ourselves visible to our market, so we must have a Marketing 2.0 strategy.It is essential for this since here there is a new approach to Marketing that emerges as a natural evolution of traditional Marketing or 1.0. Thus, while Marketing 1.0 is aimed at the masses and mainly uses high-diffusion media such as radio, press or television, Marketing 2.0 is a perspective through which actions are directed at each individual user, offering personalized information of interest to them. that uses new technologies and the Internet to individually reach a huge number of clients and prospects. It is a mass customization of marketing that can only be carried out through the intensive and objective use of ICTs.
A Marketing 2.0 strategy involves the set of many actions that will lead us to our end customer by identifying their tastes and adapting the strategy to them.
In general, talking about electronic commerce is very broad, in this article I wanted to make you roughly know the customer perspective and the considerations of a seller, hoping that this article will make you reflect on e-commerce and I must clarify that this is written here is only a small part.
So if you want to start your own online store we hope to be able to serve you at www.iemprendedora.com where we will discuss a solution and help you to start this business that, once it has taken flight, only works.
