There are plenty of products offered online: cloths, furniture, computers, books, songs, electronic devices, and so on. Is there any particular of product that we might not be able to sell online?
The fact that e-business allows no physical contact raise up some impacts [1]. Through the internet, customers lose the opportunity to smell, observe or even touch products that they want to buy. This somehow reduces the level of customer trust towards the organization and lowers their intention to do business with the organization (Please refer to how does e-business different from traditional business). So, why do some products achieve their glorious age even though they are offered online?
The best way to answer this question is probably by drawing a fine line, categorizing products into two different categories: products that are suitable for selling online and products that are more suitable for selling offline.
Figure1. Product Continuum [2]
Digitized products or information based products such as e-book, journal articles and songs are more suitable for online environment [2]. This is mostly because it is easier for the company to offer the products online than to offer them physically in the traditional markets. Physical products that need to be transported / delivered online such as Penguin mints (a company who sells candy) may still fit the online environment but do not highly depend on the internet.
For banking organizations, such as Commonwealth bank, security still remains an important issue on the internet. However, a bank without online banking facilities will certainly lose the pace in this era. Physical products with small values will also not suitable for online environment. Since customers are always subjected for delivery cost on most online purchases and it is likely that the delivery cost itself will exceed the original cost of product, selling these products on the internet will not attract many of interested customers. Other products such as perishable product such as meat and sea food that can be easily damaged or spoiled during the product delivery, are also not suitable for online environment.
Other related topics:
How does E-business differ from traditional business?
How does e-business earn money online?
Do we need a better payment system for e-business?
[1] Papazoglou, M.P. and Pieter M.A. Ribbers (2006). E-Business Organizational and Technical Foundations. John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex
[2] Dann, S. and Stephen Dann (2004). Strategic Internet Marketing 2.0. 2nd Ed., John Wiley & Sons Australia, Milton
Filed under: Selling on internet | Tagged: E-Business, product continuum, Selling on internet, Selling on the web, selling online
Well, we also have to take into account the geographic distance between the shop and customer. If they are near (just say, both of them in one city), maybe some of the drawbacks you mentioned can be ignored.
FIY, I think it’s worth for you to research BSS (Bulletin Board System) i.e Online Forum. Yes, it is Forum, but what it does concern to Selling on Web. Just take a look of this website
The biggest Indonesian Forum: kaskus.us is also provide a media to selling / buying for it’s member other than it’s main purpose of BSS: Discussing.
browse to Forum Jual Beli, nearly everthing can find on this forum.
But Blog is different than Forum system or CMS system.
Blog ussually used by individualy for sharing his commitment or idea, and others only comment.
please take a look at my site also, if u have a time ^^
i mixed the idea of forum, blog and cms system into one.
http://www.parkirotak.com.