E-COMMERCE BUSINESS GUIDE.

GLOBAL E-COMMERCE.

E-commerce is changing the face of business and opening up global opportunities to online merchants. Many companies on the Internet are experiencing a growing percentage of international sales and these companies are realizing the need to refocus their corporate strategy and seize the opportunity to process in an offshore jurisdiction. Electronic commerce is changing the shape of retailing. It offers consumers the chance to shop anywhere in the world 24-hours a day. It offers retailers new marketing channels, new customers, and new sources of revenue.

Whether an Internet website supplements a company's store, simplifies ordering from a catalogue, or is the one and only sales channel, retailers are offering net shopping in ever increasing numbers. The opportunities are enormous. The electronic marketplace relies upon credit card payments. The robust and sophisticated technology of the international network of banks and bank card associations simplifies transactions for both seller and buyer. For retailers, handling billing and collections through credit cards is cost-effective, reliable, and fast. Processing credit card transactions through an offshore bank has distinct advantages. Privacy of information, concern over government stability in countries of operation and protection from currency fluctuations are often important to retail clients. When the Visa or MasterCard systems recognises the transaction as based in an offshore jurisdiction, it permits settlement locally, so the retailer can take advantage of the benefits of confidentiality, security and tax neutral status. Different offshore jurisdictions have different appeals, and many of them are evolving to meet the constantly changing world of e-commerce.

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What is E-commerce?

It is now possible to access almost all the information we need electronically through our computer or telephone. Every day this volume of information accessible via the internet increases in leaps and bounds. Today the western world is really only at the equivalent stage as aircraft design in the early 1920´s and as with early aviation development is occurring at an increasingly fast pace.

E-commerce is an example of a rapidly developing online service. Online services are those services accessed through the use of technology, with an emphasis on Internet and telecommunications technology.

Online services have been in place for several years, since banks began to introduce EFTPOS and bank cards which are forms of online service. Such services are now beginning to play a much greater part in our daily lives - at home and at work - as business and government grapple with the need to be more efficient, cost effective and flexible in the way that services are delivered to customers.

There are two main forms of online services: e-commerce - doing business electronically (usually involving a financial transaction) and electronic service delivery.

Home computers and telephones are being increasingly used for obtaining services (such as checking bus timetables) and transactions (such as buying goods).

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What does the future hold?

What's in it for you, the individual?

For the individual, the online future means that we can shop all over the world on the Internet; do our banking over the telephone; talk to our far-flung family members through online chat (IRC) or e-mail, or work from home. We can pick and choose what we want to study and when, and we can talk to the world about any subject we like.

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What's in it for business?

Business began meeting the challenge about 30 years ago when banks introduced ATMs (automatic teller machines). These days it is hard to even remember the time when the only choice we had was to go into the bank and get our money out over the counter. It's hard to recall when we couldn't pay with a credit card or EFTPOS, in fact for people under 35 a time without credit cards would be unknown, though these conveniences are all relatively new to our society and have only become big business in the last 15 years, the first major Credit Card, American Express arrived in 1958 followed by Bank American and Barclaycard in the 1960s. The increased access to the Internet and improving technology is making the world a marketplace and business recognises that service is the new competitive edge. The ease with which the consumer can order, pay and take delivery of a product will be the standard by which business and government will be judged. Business to business transactions enable businesses to order supplies, organise training, hire new staff or to pay their bills and send accounts. With the World Wide Web, business now has the chance to sell their product or service to the world and to increase their market exposure. While this type of electronic commerce has been occurring for some time, many companies are now investing in exploiting online services to a much greater extent and researching how they can deliver increased benefits to their consumers - whether they be other businesses or their customers.

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