Impact of Internet and Ecommerce on International Businesses

Question: Discuss about the Impact of Internet and Ecommerce on International Businesses. Answer: Introduction Ecommerce refers to selling and buying services and products, or transmitting data or funds over the internet. This data or fund transaction occurs either from customer to business or customer to customer or business to business or from business to customer (Turban et al. 2015). Latest improvements in Internet and which can be accessed using mobile and other devices that also make things easier for customers and give them various online purchasing options. The document presented below discusses that the impact of internet and ecommerce on global business and opportunities and challenges that are caused by this to the organizations. Impact of Internet and Ecommerce in International Businesses The improvement in Internet and their utilization has affected various businesses and societies globally. E-commerce provides the right kind of virtual platform to businesses without any need or requirement of physical location (Tatoglu et al. 2014). The Internet and ecommerce has provided various improvements to business efficiency and trade avenues. Souq.com is an international business located in United Arabs Emirates and it is based on massive mediators between online and traditional markets. The Internet provides different features to get access via client and server method on a particular company website. Internet and ecommerce are the two sides of a coin (Uae.souq.com 2016). Without the internet, ecommerce does not work and without e-commerce, the internet does not work. Moreover on the Souq.com websites the impact of ecommerce heavily depends on upon the concept of business to consumer based application (Belkhamza and Wafa 2014). The entire company is duly engaged with the selling of product and services from different parts of the world. The inbuilt facility of Souq.com provides their customers with extra advantages by introducing the concept of ecommerce (Flanagin et al. 2014). The concept of introducing Ecommerce in Souq.com provides them the best platform to utilize it for selling their several products and also provide several offers and discounts for a specified product and services. And they also highlight and reflect the impact of internet and ecommerce on this company. Internet Trading Tools The Internet lowers the communication cost and time which is spent in marketing and which makes it much more critical trading techniques and tools for international businesses (Turban et al. 2015). The Internet provides the information in a digital format at a much lower price which helps the businesses to operate more efficiently and they can also pass on the cost saving to their clients. The advanced internet technology has raised the bar for various businesses to reach their potential clients or customers not only locally but globally as well. The internet is a proper trading tool for their business, where it provides the vendors to be at the right place and at the right time (Gilinsky et al. 2015). Efficiencies of Supply Chain The companies or firms that are engaged in international trading noticed that the Internet helps them in better supply chain management for their services and goods. It also reduces the overhead prices related to transport functions, distribution, and marketing (Lu and Liu 2015). High impact of the internet enhances the efficiency of logistics and trade distribution, which enables movement of data without any required insurance, transport and other prices. Small and Rural Businesses The internet and ecommerce allows the access to customer across worldwide with no transportation costs. A mid size business without any well-furnished store or outlet have a high disadvantage in any major locations (Savrul et al. 2014). The internet provides small business an unique platform over the website where they can represent themselves as a well-established company. Hence, the internet and ecommerce have various impacts on small and rural business. The internet and ecommerce plays a critical role in small and rural businesses. Effect of Internet on shopping experience of the Customers The use of Internet for purchasing has changed the modern way of shopping. Online purchasing has become frequent and provides some major advantages over the traditional shopping experience. The traditional ways of shopping has been broken and decaying with the advent of the facilities of online shopping. The customers are opting to choose internet shopping sites like ASOS, Net-a-Porter, Matchesfashion.com, etc. for staying at home rather than going out to market to buy any commodity. Over 75% of people read reviews of the product over the internet for buying any product (Belkhamza and Wafa 2014). The customers can get more information of the products online rather than in shops. Effect of Online Shopping on Brick and Mortar stores The purchasing of products over the Internet has caused decline of the footfalls of the customers at Brick and Mortar. Online shopping provides the eases that brick and mortar could not. Hence, it has been seen that although being a one stop for all commodities, brick and mortar has seen less generation of revenue from their stores. Maximum customers have started opting for the online shopping destinations rather than the brick and mortar stores. According to CNBC (2016), there has been decrease in the customers at brick and mortar by 10% since the last year. Opportunities Many opportunities have been found by utilizing the internet services and ecommerce in respective organization. These are as followed: It provides faster buying and selling process with the help of a broad platform. Easy to search for expected products It is regardless of any geographical boundary Physical presence of any consumer during buying or selling products is not required Easy to manage Provides twenty-four-hour services Online money transaction is available No presence of third party involvement is found Challenges There are certain common threats faced by this organization due to the use of ecommerce and internet services. Security issues might occur during data transaction and money transaction over the internet platform Chances of attacks of worms and viruses Spoofing, snooping might affect or corrupt the entire system Any mechanical failure can bring unpredictable issues Quality issues might occur as the consumers will not be able to see the products face to face. Conclusion The present document discusses the impact of ecommerce and internet in international businesses and souq.com. It has been found that the incidence of internet and ecommerce in the existing businesses are high, and they do provide better advantages to the companies those who have enrolled with the ecommerce industries. They do provide the right kind of trading tools to the companies to sell their products worldwide. Moreover, the document discusses about an individual company such as Souq.com is impacted by ecommerce and the Internet. The overall concept of this essay is to provide the knowledge of how the impact of internet and ecommerce is on businesses. The overall idea of this document is to understand the impact of internet and ecommerce on a specific business or in general and opportunities and challenges they provide to organizations. References Belkhamza, Z. and Wafa, S.A., 2014. 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