Specifications

digitally, you need to do it immediately. You cannot manually oversee the process, or spread
peaks of activity through the day. Immediate delivery systems are therefore more open to fraud
and are more of a burden on computer resources.
Digital goods and services are ideal for e-commerce, but obviously only a limited range of
goods and services can be delivered this way.
Adding Value to Goods or Services
Some successful areas of commercial Web sites do not actually sell any goods or services.
Services such as courier companies’ (UPS at
www.ups.com or Fedex at www.fedex.com) track-
ing services are not generally designed to directly make a profit. They add value to the existing
services offered by the organization. Allowing customers to track their parcels or bank bal-
ances can give the company a competitive advantage.
Support forums also fall into this category. There are sound commercial reasons for giving cus-
tomers a discussion area to share troubleshooting tips about your company’s products.
Customers might be able to solve their problems by looking at solutions given to others, inter-
national customers can get support without paying for long distance phone calls, and customers
might be able to answer one another’s questions outside your office hours. Providing support in
this way can increase your customers’ satisfaction at a low cost.
Cutting Costs
One popular use of the Internet is to cut costs. Savings could result from distributing informa-
tion online, facilitating communication, replacing services, or centralizing operations.
If you currently provide information to a large number of people, you could possibly do the
same thing more economically via a Web site. Whether you are providing price lists, a catalog,
documented procedures, specifications, or something else, it could be cheaper to make the
same information available on the Web instead of printing and delivering paper copies. This is
particularly true for information that changes regularly. The Internet can save you money by
facilitating communication. Whether this means that tenders can be widely distributed and
rapidly replied to, or whether it means that customers can communicate directly with a whole-
saler or manufacturer, eliminating middlemen, the result is the same. Prices can come down, or
profits can go up.
Replacing services that cost money to run with an electronic version can cut costs. A brave
example is Egghead.com. They chose to close their chain of computer stores, and concentrate
on their e-commerce activities. Although building a significant e-commerce site obviously
costs money, a chain of more than 70 retail stores has much higher ongoing costs. Replacing
an existing service comes with risks. At the very least, you will lose customers who do not use
the Internet.
E-commerce and Security
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