Introduction to E commerce

What is E commerce?

Selling and Purchasing of services, goods and products remotely with the help of the internet is called E commerce.

Definition of E Commerce?

Electronic commerce is buying and selling goods, services or products with the help of the internet. It also includes the transfer of money and data to complete the financial transactions.

Difference between E commerce Store and E commerce marketplaces?

Individual E commerce Store

Store owners can sell, deliver, manage the products,reviews and content with their own policies and responsibilities! Marketing of the platform is its own responsibility!

Examples: Gucci, Nike, Outfitters, Diners Store, J. etc

What is meant by E commerce marketplaces?

An online platform where different sellers sell their product, in which seller manages his sales, orders, products, inventory and product related customer support, on the other end Marketplace manages the quality standard for the seller and buyers! Reviews are managed by Marketplace in this model. To bring traffic or do marketing is marketplace responsibility! Different restrictions are imposed on sellers by the marketplace!

Examples:Amazon, FoodPanda, Daraz, Alibaba, Fiverr, eBay, Etsy, AirBnb, Uber, Careem , upwork etc

Different Famous E Commerce platforms and their Specifications and Purposes:

Difference between E commerce Tools and E commerce Platforms?

It is very easy to differentiate between both of them, visit the sites, if the site has direct products that are for sale, then it will be an E commerce platform!

While it will have other options like speed optimisation, designs, build a website, etc then it will be E commerce Tools!

Difference between Amazon and Ebay?

Why Is Selling on Amazon so Difficult?

Amazon is brand conscious:

Amazon has strong rules and policies against selling brand products, On eBay you have to fill the form, to which brand it belongs!

But on Amazon you need to get approval from the brand, in case if you want to sell brand products! Amazon authorises the brand, if you want to sell. Selling on Amazon is more difficult than eBay because of brand restriction and policies.

Amazon doesn’t allow reselling easily:

If you see something in malls, selling at low prices, or you saw something getting liquified online or offline. Then you visit both for selling, eBay and Amazon!

On Ebay you can list them without any trouble, but Amazon will create troubles like brand authorization, UPC authorization etc.

So for a common person, it’s difficult to sell on Amazon as compared to Ebay!

Amazon is not dropshipping friendly and Ebay is dropshipping friendly

Before that let us discuss what is dropshipping?

An E commerce Model, In which sellers don’t buy any product for selling purpose, Seller just uses product information to sell on it’s own store or any platform like eBay, amazon etc with good profit margin! When Buyers order from Seller, Seller orders the product to the supplier and provides the buyer address to fulfil the order!

Amazon Selling policies doesn't say anything to the dropshipping, or does not have restrictions! Amazon is concerned with providing the customer quality and fast shipping time, which is sometimes possible in dropshipping!

Ebay has flexible shipping times!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GXY4N27BWW8H38AB

Amazon restricts the sellers to ship the product within a limited time frame and not following it will cause bad effects on your account health! Which may cause account suspension! On the other end Ebay doesn’t have any serious concerns about fast shipping times.

Ebay is easy to sell

Creating the account(known as Seller ID) on amazon is difficult as compared to Ebay! Start selling on Amazon might take 14 days, but on eBay it’s much quicker and Easier!

Terms and conditions on eBay are much easier than amazon conditions! You don’t need to register the brand, or get permission, in case if you want to sell on eBay!

In eBay, you can start selling by authorising your paypal account, while in amazon, selling is not much easier!

In case of insertion fee for Amazon:

Amazon doesn’t charge any amount to list the products, while eBay charges on the account of insertion fee!

Ebay is famous for 2nd hand products as well

Both platforms allow you to sell used products, but eBay is more famous for it! While eBay has easy policies to sell 2nd hand or used products as compared to Amazon! Ebay has a large audience that is based on used products shopping!

Amazon has kindle

Amazon kindle is made for e book readers, in which Amazon also provides Kindle devices for reading! While eBay sells eBooks, it doesn’t have any centralised platform for reading!

Ebay has auctions and Amazon has fixed prices

Ebay provides an auction option for some products, but amazon has fixed u\

prices! In ebay a minimum threshold is provided and customers have to bid more from it! Multiple buyers bid on it, and Seller chooses the highest bid if the seller wants!

Amazon is very strict for the seller!

To provide the best customer experience, Amazon does not bear any violation in terms and policies, on the other end amazon dashboard (aka Amazon seller central) has strict, quick and tight procedures which sellers have to follow in a limited time frame!

Amazon has FBA program.

Amazon provides a complete inventory storage and Order fulfilment solution named as “FBA”, which is known as “Fulfilment by Amazon”. While before FBA Seller on amazon is free from picking, packing, shipping, tracking, getting refunds or returns from the customer!

Inventory is stored in Amazon Warehouse, when a customer orders the product, amazon picks the item from the warehouse and then packs it, and then labelled it, and then sends it to the customer house! The seller is just responsible for sending the products to amazon warehouse!

While Ebay doesn’t have any FBA or fulfilment program!

Amazon has more tools than ebay

Tools we are discussing are not developed by amazon or ebay! They are developed by 3rd party platforms including jungle scout, helium 10, zikanlytics etc! For amazon there are multiple prominent tools but for Ebay there limited tools!

Ebay is in 27 countries, while amazon is in 19 countries

Ebay has more dominance in the market as compared to amazon, which does not mean that ebay has more market share! Amazon is the king of E commerce!

Amazon Needs UPCs/ BARCODES/ for each Product variant

For each listing on amazon you need to arrange bar codes, But on ebay, Bar codes are optional in many cases and that can be bypassed very easily!

Selling on 0 label products

For ebay it’s very easy to sell 0 label products, but for amazon you need to contact customer support to provide you brand exemption, after reviewing your application, amazon will allow you to sell 0 label products!

Business cycle of Ecommerce
Benefits of E commerce v/s Traditional market
Retail arbitrage, Online arbitrage and dropshipping?