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Internet Basics: eCommerce is Like Playing House
Ever play house as a kid? You don't even have to be in a house
to play it. You just say, "The kitchen's over there, and this is
the laundry, and here's the garage," and so on. You make it all
up in your mind, but none of it's really there.
You can add stuff whenever you want, and you can decide it's the
end of the workday even if it's really ten o'clock in the
morning.
That's what eCommerce is like.
With eCommerce, a business doesn't have to be in a traditional
business-type setting or building. If they want a store, they
just:
·make some webpages (which are really only computer files)
·upload them to a server (which is really only a computer hooked
up to the Internet)
·make sure they have a way their customers can pay them (a
payment provider)
And suddenly they have a store, even though there's no "actual"
store anywhere that anyone can "go into." And it can be open 24
hours a day.
But just as playing house isn't just about the kitchen,
eCommerce isn't just about selling things online. With
eCommerce, if a business wants a service department, they just:
·create an email address
·then make sure somebody somewhere (anywhere) is
going to pick
up the emails sent to that email address
Or they might put customer support information on their website
- things like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), or installation
instructions, or product registration forms.
Or they might make up tools their customers can use, such as a
mortgage calculator, or a currency converter, or even an
ovulation calculator.
Or they might provide access to a person they can contact for
help through email, or chat, or a phone number (maybe), or even
snail mail (regular postal mail).
They just make up what they need to do business online as they
go along because it's so easy to make it up.
And that's why eCommerce is like playing house.
Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may
forward this article in its entirety to anyone you wish.
About the author:
Grant Pasay is a writer, musician, moviemaker, and author of the
new eBook, "The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator: And Other Weird
Comparisons That Make it Easy to Understand Everything From AOL
to Zip Files."
Check out Grant's free/brandable ebook at:
http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/
Check out Grant at: http://grantpasay.com/
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