Facilitating virtual contact between organizations and customers, it allows people to exchange goods and services immediately without the barriers of time or distance. The result is a significant reduction in costs while increasing the convenience for the consumer.

An important aspect of ecommerce is its ability to take orders and receive payments through an online shopping cart. Ecommerce promotes openness, connectivity, and integration between organizations and customers. From the organization’s perspective, ecommerce provides an immediate means to satisfy the demands of each individual customer for products, services, and information. From the consumer’s perspective, ecommerce offers increased convenience, product variety, time and financial savings. The result is a transfer of power from the merchant to the consumer as the customer can choose to purchase any item, at any time of the day, at their own convenience.

Some of the benefits for your organization:

• Lower transaction costs - if an ecommerce site is well implemented, the shopping cart site can significantly lower both the up front order-taking costs and the customer service costs after the sale by automating processes.
  
• Elimination of errors - since online selling involves little human intervention, it virtually eliminates the processing errors caused by humans. This in turn makes online selling cheaper, more convenient and efficient. In addition, the level of customer satisfaction increases, often times resulting in further income for the organization.
  
• Greater convenience - selling from a website is not confined to business hours. It is continuous, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. It truly is a 24/7 cashier!
  
• No more bounced checks – with almost instant verification from the card holders bank stating whether the account has sufficient credit to cover the purchase, no more items will be bought with NSF checks.

The benefits to your customers:

• Convenience and ease of use - consumers can shop at anytime of day, wearing whatever they want. With just a few clicks, they can pay bills or have an item shipped to their door, all without leaving the comfort of their own home. Product information and pictures can also be listed on the site to give consumers a better idea of the product.
• Variety and more choice - consumers have greater opportunity to compare and contrast the various products available. Since merchants are not limited by physical shelf space, ecommerce websites can offer a larger selection of items than “brick and mortar” stores.
• No more lost money – the kids’ lunch money won’t get lost in their backpack and checks will no longer get lost in the mail or sent to the wrong department. If something goes wrong with the purchase, the credit card company will be able to track the money, determine, and fix any errors in the processing.