Business Model of On-Line Retaining Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Business Model of On-Line Retaining - Essay Example On-Line retailing business runs over the Internet through well designed user friendly portals, whereby the products & services are displayed through electronic means (like photographs, images, videos, etc.) and payments collected either electronically or using a system that accepts remote checks, wire transfers or on-delivery cash. On-line Retailing is different from the traditional business primarily from the perspective of product display, business expenses, business location, communication & customer engagement, and technology. Supply chain management of both businesses are similar with the only exception that on-line businesses have to manage their deliveries remotely and in larger geographies (even at global levels) whereas the traditional retailers may have to carry out lesser remote deliveries within a fixed locality. We hereby analyze the on-line retailing process deployed by eBay through their portal named (www.ebay.com). The process of on-line shopping starts from a search engine - either global search engines like Google, Yahoo or the search engine built within the eBay portal. Products advertised on eBay can be approached through both the mechanisms. Once the buyer reaches the on-line display of the product of c... Once the buyer reaches the on-line display of the product of choice (two or three dimensional graphics or video along with specifications, pricing details, terms & conditions, etc), he/she can evaluate the product using published specifications & pictures/videos and then open a shopping cart where the products selected for purchase can be collected. After collecting all products, the buyer can proceed for payments where the terms on eBay are electronic (credit cards or debit cards. Given that eBay is a global on-line shopping portal, they do not offer localized choices of payments. The soft products can be downloaded online and the hard products are transferred to the customer from the warehouse that is closest to the physical address of the Customer. eBay also offers international delivery of products through world class renowned courier services which is charged to the buyer at the time of purchase. [Chatpar and Venugopalan, 2007] Key Traits and Bases of success of the marketing strategy of Online Retailers The key factors of success of Online Retail businesses are the following: (a) Excellent User Friendly Portal system: eBay is one of the most user friendly on-line shopping portal of the world. The buyers are able to quickly search and select products of their choice through well deigned categorization & guidance systems and make secured & reliable payment. (www.ebay.com). (b) High Quality Customer Services: To serve their customers, eBay has on-line chat & message boards, e-mail ids through which trained customer support specialists respond quickly to address queries or grievances. Extra information on every product is available through local product catalogues whereby the products in stock exactly match the