What is E-Tailing?

If few years back technology brought the shopping information on to the laptops, today it brings the products right to the doorstep. With the use of internet as a medium a person can buy products from a virtual store (shopping website). Though detractors to this technological advancement thought that this would take the joy off shopping, it has only added a whole new perspective to shopping.

Meaning of E-Tailing:-

The word E-tail has its roots in the word ‘retail’. Here the letter E stands for ‘electronic’ since the shopping process happens through the electronic media (internet). With the use of a web-space a virtual shop is created and the products are displayed through images in this space with the features and price tags. By accessing this shopping site a customer can choose his/herproducts into a cart. The payment to this product can be done in various modes as mentioned by the shopping site. The product would be delivered to the address specified by the customer.

 

The shopping process through internet media happens in 5 steps generally.

Customer visit: The customer accesses the website of the e-tailer through his/her mobile or PC or laptop. This visit is very critical to the e-tailer because it is this visit that would create an opportunity for a business. The simplicity of the site, the arrangements of the products in the site and various other factors decide the first impression of the customer.

Choice of product: Once the customer visits the site he/she would choose a product based on the image and valid information available on the web page. This information can include the price tag, details about the product, availability/deliverable time span and even customer reviews on the product.

Payment online: Once the customer chooses the product the next step would be to go through a secure process of data exchange. The e-tailer may provide a unique user account to the customer to keep the transaction safe. Payments to the product can be made online through credit or debit card or even cash on delivery basis where the customer pays the e-tailer when the product is delivered to him/her.

Product delivery: Once the order is placed with the e-tailer the next process would test the efficiency of supply chain network of the e-tailer. The delivery of the product would be based on the availability of the product in the inventory closest to the customer’s delivery address. This process may also involve shipment of the product. There are different methods used in this process. Some e-tailers just create a platform through a website where the business actually takes place between the customer and a company (or business) who is a client to the e-tailer. Here the e-tailer would just take the commission on each product sold. Typically an e-tailer may also choose to buy products that have potential demand and then display it on the site. In this case the e-tailer would have to take care of inventory expenses and also the entire procurement and disbursement cycle.

 

Customer feedback: Once the product is delivered to the customer the feedback from the customer is very much important. This is primarily because of the absence of a real shopping store environment. The entire experience of the customer during the process would be an indicator of the efficiency of e-tailing. This experience of the customer can be accessed through proper customer service for feed backs and the problems faced by the customer should be corrected by the e-tailer. Late delivery, wrong product, damaged product etc can be some of the customer complaints which the e-tailer would have to sort out.