Advantages and disadvantages of E-commerce website

(freepik.com, 2021)

Advantages of  E-commerce website

• Availability: E-commerce sites are accessible 24/7, allowing users to explore and shop at any time, with the exception of outages and scheduled maintenance. Brick-and-mortar stores frequently have set hours of operation and occasionally close completely.

• Speed of accesses: While crowds can slow down customers in a physical store, e-commerce sites run rapidly due to considerations regarding computing and bandwidth on both the consumer device and the e-commerce site. The loading time of the product and shopping cart pages is under a second. An online purchase can be made in a few clicks and within five minutes.
• Wide availability: "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" was the tagline of Amazon at initially. It was an online retailer, not a physical bookstore that needed to stock every book on its shelves, so it could make this claim. E-commerce enables businesses to offer a large range of goods, which are subsequently transported from a single warehouse or from several warehouses when a transaction is made. Finding what customers want will probably be easier.
• Easily accessible: Customers looking in a real store could have trouble finding a specific item. Website users can instantly search for a product using the site's search feature and explore product category pages in real time.
• Reach across the globe: Businesses with physical stores sell to clients who come into their locations. Businesses can sell to everyone who has access to the internet through e-commerce. E-commerce has the potential to increase a company's clientele.
• Lower cost: Pure-play e-commerce companies do not have to pay rent, stock, or payroll costs associated with operating physical storefronts. However, they can be responsible for shipping and storage fees.
• Personalisation and product recommendations: E-commerce sites can track a visitor's browse, search and purchase history. They can use this data to present personalized product recommendations and obtain insights about target markets. Examples include the sections of Amazon product pages labeled "Frequently bought together" and "Customers who viewed this item also viewed."

Disadvantages of E-commerce website

• Limited customer services: Customers can ask a clerk, cashier, or store manager for assistance if they have a query or problem in a physical store. Customer service in an online store may be restricted: The website may only offer assistance during defined hours, and its online service choices may be challenging to use or unable to address a particular query.
• Limited product experience: Although looking at product photographs on a website can give you a good idea of what it is like, it's not the same as actually using the object, such as when you play a guitar, evaluate the picture quality of a television, or try on clothes. Online shoppers may wind up purchasing goods that fall short of their expectations and need to be returned. In some circumstances, the cost of shipping a returned item to the merchant is borne by the customer. The capacity of customers to inspect and test e-commerce goods is anticipated to improve with augmented reality technology.
• Wait time: In a shop, buyers purchase a product and take it home. Customers who purchase goods online must wait for delivery of their purchases. Although shipping windows are getting smaller as next-day and even same-day delivery become more frequent, it still takes time.
• Security: Hackers with the right skills can make websites that look real and advertise the sale of popular goods. In its place, the website either sends customers counterfeit or knockoff versions of such things or merely steals credit card data. Risk can also be present on legitimate e-commerce websites, particularly when users opt to store their credit card details with the merchant to facilitate future purchases. Threat actors may take those credit card details if the retailer's website is breached. Additionally, a retailer's reputation could be harmed by a data leak(Lutkevich et al., 2022).

Reference

Lutkevich, B., Chai, W. and Holak, B. (2022) What is e-commerce? definition and meaning, CIO. TechTarget. Available at: https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/e-commerce (Accessed: January 17, 2023).