ECOMMERCE WEBSITE DESIGN

Is it the right time to launch your own ecommerce website? Even though the answer is vivid you can read the prove below. As you may conclude from the official ecommerce report below the most profitable and successful ecommerce products are apparel, computers, and autos. So, we have recently designed a number of websites for sale you might be interested to buy.

CUSTOM eCOMMERCE WEBSITE DESIGN REQUEST FORM

A successful ecommerce website starts from a great domain name that makes half the business! Check what ecommerce websites and ecommerce domain names we offer for sale.

ECOMMERCE WEBSITES FOR SALE

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According to the official source (census.gov) the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2008, adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes, was $31.9 billion, a decrease of 5.7 percent from the third quarter of 2008. Total retail sales for the fourth quarter of 2008 were estimated at $938.1 billion, a decrease of 7.8 percent from the third quarter of 2008. The fourth quarter 2008 ecommerce estimate decreased 5.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 while total retail sales decreased 9.1 percent in the same period. E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales. On a not adjusted basis, the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2008 totaled $37.1 billion, an increase of 17.3 percent from the third quarter of 2008. The fourth quarter 2008 e-commerce estimate decreased 4.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 while total retail sales decreased 8.6 in the same period. E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.8 percent of total sales. Total e-commerce sales for 2008 were estimated at $133.6 billion, an increase of 4.6 percent from 2007. Total retail sales in 2008 decreased 0.6 percent from 2007. E-commerce sales in 2008 accounted for 3.3 percent of total sales. E-commerce sales in 2007 accounted for 3.2 percent of total sales.

According to shop.org Americans will continue to flock to the Internet for clothing, computers, and even cars... online retail will continue to be a bright spot in the industry with retail sales rising 17 percent this year to $204 billion. Apparel ($26.6 billion), computers ($23.9 billion), and autos ($19.3 billion) will be the largest three sales categories!

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Advantages Of Ecommerce

But in this mass exodus to the Internet Marketplace, choosing the right e commerce hosting service and e commerce software solution for your company is critical in ensuring you'll reap the benefits of owning and maintaining a productive website instead of falling victim to common problems and bad planning online. With this in mind, it's important to find an e-commerce solutions provider who can give you all of the advantages of ecommerce like dedicated and affordable website hosting you need, along with security, flexibility, and support. Let's compare the areas in which e-commerce can really shine over more traditional retail venues:

• Inventory Management
• Reporting & Performance
• Monitoring Storefront
• Image & Maintenance
• Security & Customer Service
• Operational Uptime & Global Market Appeal

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Ecommerce Impact On US Economy

In recent years, e-commerce has emerged as the fastest growing sector of the U.S. marketplace. Despite the contraction in the high-tech industry during the recent recession, firms have continued to enter and expand their presence in e-commerce, and consumers have increased the number of purchases made online. E-commerce currently represents a very small share of overall commerce, but it is expected to continue to expand rapidly in coming years. As e-commerce grows, so will its impact on the overall economy.

The primary route by which e-commerce will affect the economy at large is through its impact on productivity and inflation. Businesses and consumers that use e-commerce benefit from a reduction in costs in terms of the time and effort required to search for goods and services and to complete transactions. This reduction in costs results in higher productivity. An even larger increase in economy wide productivity levels may result from productivity gains by firms not engaged in e-commerce as they respond to this new source of competition. Continued expansion of e-commerce may also lead to downward pressure on inflation through greater competition, cost savings, and changes in price-setting behavior of sellers.

Recognizing e-commerce potential impact on the economy is important for policymakers and forecasters as they project economic activity in the future. As e-commerce expands, it could further the trends in productivity growth and inflation that have been observed in recent years. Productivity growth was low in the 1970s and 1980s before increasing sharply in the second half of the 1990s. Inflation was high in the 1970s and early 1980s before beginning a steady decline. The causes of these well-documented changes, however, are not fully understood by economists. While these developments are partly due to fiscal and monetary policy actions, it is also possible that structural changes in the economy played a role. Increased e-commerce activity represents a structural change that could result in downward pressure on inflation over the next decade and, if not offset by monetary policymakers, could lead to disinflation.

THE SIZE AND GROWTH OF E-COMMERCE

Over the past decade, e-commerce has increasingly provided an alternative way for buyers and sellers to transact. The term e-commerce, which is short for electronic commerce, is the act of buying or selling goods, services, or information over an electronic network. Transactions are negotiated electronically and are completed when agreement is reached to transfer ownership of goods or rights to receive services or information for a specified price.

Until recently, analysis of e-commerce has been limited by a lack of data. In 1999, the Census Bureau began requesting data on e-commerce sales in its annual surveys of manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and selected services and in its monthly survey of retailers. These surveys provide detailed data on the two primary types of transactions: business-to-consumer, or B2C, and business-to-business, or B2B.

Despite receiving the majority of media attention due to its recent rapid growth, B2C e-commerce represents only a small share of sales. B2C accounted for only 7 percent of e-commerce sales in 2002, the most recent year for which data are available. In terms of overall sales, B2C e-commerce comprised only 1.1 percent of total B2C commerce in 2002. The growth of B2C e-commerce, however, far outpaced that of non-e-commerce. Between 1999 and 2002, B2C e-commerce grew 29 percent annually, while non-e-commerce grew 4 percent annually.

The development of B2C e-commerce has been fueled by a rapid increase in the number of people shopping on the Internet. First introduced for public use in the late 1980s, the Internet has quickly expanded from a network primarily used for e-mail communication into a place to engage in a wide variety of activities, including online shopping. As a result, the fraction of households with Internet access increased from less than 20 percent in 1997 to over 50 percent in 2001 (Department of Commerce 2002). Accompanying this surge in Internet usage, the percentage of individuals who made online purchases in recent years has also increased. Commerce Department surveys taken in 2000 and 2001 show that the number of people shopping online increased from 13 percent to 21 percent.

Evidence also suggests that the strong growth of B2C e-commerce has continued since 2002. While annual data for e-commerce is currently available only through 2002, the Census Bureau also reports a quarterly e-commerce series based on its monthly retail survey, which accounts for about half of B2C commerce. According to the most recent data, e-commerce retail sales grew 25 percent in the fourth quarter in 2003 from the year-earlier period, while total retail sales increased 6 percent over the same span. Dating back to the fourth quarter of 1999, e-commerce retail sales have jumped at an annual rate of 34 percent. Thus, over a period including the most recent recession, growth of e-commerce in B2C retail sales has remained strong and stable.

IMPLICATIONS OF FUTURE E-COMMERCE GROWTH

If buyers and sellers continue to increase their use of e-commerce, the overall economy is likely to be affected in two ways. First, cost savings achieved by e-commerce sellers will increasingly lead to higher productivity. Second, the combination of increased competition and cost savings will result in downward pressure on the price level and possibly inflation as many e-firms will charge lower prices than conventional sellers. Because of the small size of e-commerce, the largest impact on productivity and inflation in the near term will come from the response of firms not engaging in e-commerce as they face pressure to lower prices and increase productivity in order to remain competitive.

As e-commerce continues to expand, its impact on aggregate productivity is likely to increase. E-firms use information technology extensively to reduce costs of transactions, inventory holdings, advertising, search, and transportation. These cost savings are achieved in part through a reduction in the amount of labor required for each business task. As a result, productivity, which is measured by output per hour of all workers, is likely to be higher on average for e-firms than for non-e-firms. E-commerce will make a larger positive contribution to overall productivity as it continues to expand in size relative to the rest of the marketplace, but this impact is likely to occur over a long horizon.

While it is difficult to calculate a precise measure of the productivity gains associated with e-commerce, several studies attest to the real and potential improvements that can be achieved. In an internal study, Cisco Systems attempted to calculate the savings achieved through the use of e-commerce and related Internet-based management improvements between 1994 and 1999. The cost savings were achieved through improvements to e-commerce, customer care, supply chain management, and workforce optimization leading to productivity increases. Cisco concluded that the accumulated cost savings in these areas over five years was equivalent to 5.3 percent of their 1999 revenue. Nearly 10 percent of the cost savings were attributable solely to workforce optimization, which represents the direct gain to productivity. In a study of the auto industry, the estimated cost savings over the next decade attributed to use of e-commerce and related Internet-based management improvements are approximately 13 percent of total production costs (Fine and Raff). While detailed estimates of actual productivity gains for the auto industry are not available, some of the cost savings will result in higher productivity.

For the economy as a whole, e-commerce is expected to make a positive contribution to productivity over the next several years. One study estimates that the existence of e-commerce and the Internet will add between 0.25 to 0.5 percentage point to productivity growth between 2001 and 2005. This impact was estimated by examining the Internet-related gains to education, financial services, government, healthcare, manufacturing, retailing, and trucking. Another study attributes a portion of the unexpectedly strong productivity growth since 2001 to advances in the ways companies and individuals use computers to conduct business with one another. Recent innovations in software and communications technology, which are the essential elements necessary for e-commerce, have allowed businesses to realize the full potential benefits of the personal computer.

An additional impact of continued e-commerce growth on productivity may result from a composition shift among sellers. During the initial development of e-commerce, particularly with regard to B2C e-commerce, small firms with low overhead were best positioned to take advantage of the low-cost e-commerce marketplace. Larger retailers, such as department stores and discount retailers, faced more hurdles because of their scale of operations and thus required a much larger investment to replicate their retail shopping model in an e-commerce framework. Given the initial low level of demand for online shopping, it was not worthwhile for large retailers to engage in e-commerce. As a result, retailers without physical stores accounted for 75 percent of ecommerce retail trade in 2001.

In the longer run, bricks-and-mortar firms are likely to become a large presence in e-commerce for three reasons. First, as information technology continues to advance, it will become less costly to establish and maintain an e-commerce business. Second, large retailers such as Wal-Mart have built their business on a superior inventory acquisition and distribution model. They are able to achieve substantial cost savings by negotiating low prices from wholesalers due to the large quantities they purchase. Third, they are able to shape the marketplace in which they operate. For example, Wal-Mart has required all of its wholesalers to use a designated Internet EDI network to reduce costs of transactions. This change will allow Wal-Mart to benefit from lower-cost B2B e-commerce transactions and pass part of the savings on to consumers, thereby increasing the competition faced by other sellers. These three factors will lead to a larger e-commerce market share for bricks-and-mortar firms.

The continued development of e-commerce is also likely to have an impact on prices and inflation. Despite the limited history of e-commerce, there is increasing evidence that the price-setting behavior of e-firms differs from that of non-e-firms. The cost savings achieved by e-firms through the implementation of advanced technology has led to lower prices for many goods and changes in the frequency of price adjustments. These changes in price-setting behavior may contribute to lower inflation in the short run and the faster adjustment of prices in response to changing economic conditions. Increases in competition as e-commerce grows may also lead to a lower price level and downward pressure on inflation. Over longer periods, the extent to which the realized inflation rate is lower will depend on the response of monetary policy.

Increased competition has put pressure on many e-firms to lower their prices. Price-sensitive buyers have been drawn to e-commerce because they can quickly execute price-comparison searches. In response, e-firms have been able to increase sales volume by lowering prices. These price reductions have been economically feasible because of the cost savings e-firms have achieved. The impact of these two elements, competition and cost savings, is strongest for standardized goods or commodities.

One example of e-commerce price competition comes from the retail market for books and compact discs, or CDs. Over the past ten years, these items have been two of the largest e-commerce retail sales products in part because they are very standardized. When purchasing a new book or CD, buyers do not have to be concerned about differences in product quality across sellers.5 A recent study of sales of these items found that e-commerce prices were 9 to 15 percent lower than prices at conventional stores in 1998 and 1999. If buyers continue to switch from stores to e-firms, this differential will create downward pressure on the aggregate price level and thus temporarily dampen inflation.

CONCLUSION

E-commerce has emerged as a new way to transact in the marketplace. Initially introduced as a means for businesses to efficiently place orders over private EDI networks, the introduction of the Internet has recently spread the benefits of transacting electronically to consumers as well. While currently representing only a small share of total transactions, e-commerce has grown rapidly in recent years.

Over the next decade, the impact of e-commerce on economic activity in the United States is likely to grow.

Inflation and productivity are two areas of economic activity that are likely to be affected by e-commerce. The cost savings achieved by e-firms has led to higher productivity, and productivity growth will continue with new innovations. The emergence of e-commerce has also made the marketplace more competitive, leading many firms to charge lower prices and creating downward pressure on inflation. In addition, improved use of information technology has allowed e-firms to respond more quickly to changes in the economy. Firms not engaging in e-commerce will also increasingly need to lower prices and improve their productivity to remain competitive with e-firms. Together, these changes may alter the behavior of inflation in response to an economic shock.

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