What is E-commerce ? What kind of services do E-commerce companies provide?

[windgate]

E commerce is what companies call ...

Well it works like this. Take for example SMC they offer E commerce but at a cost to the people that have signed up for that company. SMC CHARGES a fee of some where between $450.00 to $500.00 TO GET STARTED. Then they send you catalogs of products you can sell. They give you different price list. The cheapest is your price list, then there is the golden rod list. That is slightly higher priced if you want to let john doe sell from the catalog, than you get the cheaper price while john doe pays the higher price but you still make a profit from the sale. The e commerce come in as a web site that the company will let you use to sell your products. But it is usually about 25.00 per month to use the web site. That way people may find your web site, even in the middle of the night and order from it. The company then drop ships the item to it's new customer. You don't need to handle the product to mail it to it's new owner. There are restocking fees if the item goes back to the company. Be careful with this company. Many things look like they came from dollar tree with ten dollar price tags.

There are other companies that have e commerce. Usually there is a monthly fee to use there web site. Some have marketing programs also. But again a monthly fee. For example: Ambit is a program that hires marketing consultants. The marketing consultant will offer reduced gas and electric prices to people that have gas and electric bills. They have an e commerce web site that people can change there service with out interruption of service. The marketing consultant makes money for switching people over and also can hire more marketing consultants. Some people make big money on this. BUT! Eventually there will be so many marketing consultants that people are stepping on each others toes so to speak. This company is not active in every state.

This is just some idea of what e commerce is. Hope this helps.