E-Commerce: Potential and barriers to online trading of goods and services, including across borders – Abrantie Kwesi Gyamfi

E-commerce can be defined as the buying and selling of goods electronically online. Its popular because of the many benefits of e-business -internet marketing, electronic funds transfer, mobile commerce,among others.This is broken up into two parts.
Advantages of e commence
This article was made to help you know more about the benefits of e-business. The online marketplace is a good platform for you to expand your business. We are going to explain what kind of advantages there are by sharing what we know about online selling. In brief, these are the plus points we will talk about.

1. Faster buying process
2. Store and product listing creation
3. Cost reduction
4. Affordable advertising and marketing.
Faster buying process
Customers can spend less time shopping for what they want. They can easily browse through many items at a time and buy what they like. When online, customers can find items that are available in physical stores far away from them or not found in their locality.
This is where ecommerce comes to the rescue for many shoppers. They go online, search for an item, get a fast response and can buy it just as quickly.

Store and product listing creation
A product listing is what the customer sees when they search for an item. This is one advantage in ecommerce meant for the seller. This online business plus point is that you can personalize your product listing after creating them. The best part? Creating a listing takes very little time, all you require is your product name or codes like EAN, UPC, ISBN or ASIN.

Sellers can add many images, a description, product category, price, shipping fee and delivery date. So, in just one step you can tell the customer many things about the item. Creating your listing shows the buyers what you have.

Cost reduction
One of the biggest advantages of ecommerce to business that keep sellers interested in online selling is cost reduction. Many sellers have to pay lots to maintain their physical store. They may need to pay extra upfront costs like rent, repairs, store design, inventory etc. In many cases, even after investing in services, stock, maintenance and workforce, sellers don’t receive desired profits and ROI.

Affordable advertising and marketing
Sellers don’t have to spend a lot of money to promote their items. The world of ecommerce has several affordable, quick ways to market online. Ecommerce marketplaces are visual channels – and sellers can really show off their product. For example, Amazon sellers can use Advertising tools to add videos, infographics, good quality resolution images.

Barriers of e-commence
Language content
Language is another important hindrance to ecommerce adoption. Language has been identified as a socio-cultural barrier that hinders both access to information and to the Internet and participation in ecommerce. Most people in developing countries are illiterates and uneducated people tend to have limited access to access information on the web because information is either in a language, which assumed some degree of education. The less educated and illiterate could not read nor understand the languages that are used to disseminate information on the Internet. Therefore, many people are unaware of how their quality of their lives and their incomes could be improved by skillful use of computer technologies such as the Internet and on-line trading. The issue related to language is important because it is a gateway of information and knowledge transfer in the digital world. English is a primary language used in many Western countries where new technologies originate. It is the predominant language for development of IT and ecommerce and it is the main language used on the Web.

Socioeconomic Barriers
Developing countries need to address a number of socioeconomic and regulatory barriers before they can participate in electronic commerce. We identified various socioeconomic characteristics as barriers hindering ecommerce adoption in developing countries. Among the most pressing are economic condition, educational system, payment systems for enabling transfer of funds, and distribution systems for physical transfer of goods.
Economic Condition
Economic condition in developing countries is widely recognized as a major hindrance for ecommerce adoption. The GDP and income per capita are common indicators for the economic condition of a country. Since ecommerce relies on some technology infrastructures which are relatively expensive for many developing countries, and they have unfavourable economic condition and are not likely to be involved in ecommerce. For example, the initial and continuing cost of Internet access has dropped in recent years, but it remains a significant barrier to ecommerce adoption in developing countries. Consequently, large “entry” and on-going costs are a great disincentive to internet usage and therefore to the development of ecommerce business both within a country and for international trade. The access charge relative to income affects Internet use. Monthly Internet access charges are still very high in most developing countries. The inequalities in income distribution means the Internet is not affordable for a large proportion of the population in rural areas. The common pattern found across developing countries is the dichotomy between the urban and rural areas in terms of technology use. In urban areas, ICT use is fairly common; while in the rural areas of some developing countries, many small enterprises do not even have computers yet, talk less of Internet access.

In conclusion, the pros and cons of the emerging business trend, e commence has the power or potential of being the most fast moving business market when it is well executed and given the need technological attention. In Ghana e-commences has since its insertion to the traditional trading lines had help to make the global market accessible to all. Local businesses being advertised online to numerous customers base. The introductions of some e- commence trends like transport, fashion, goods and services.

Filed by Abrantie Kwesi Gyamfi

References
(“9 Major Advantages of Ecommerce to Businesses in 2022 | Seller Blog”, 2022)
Lawrence, J. E., & Tar, U. A. (2010). Barriers to e-commerce in developing countries. Information, society and justice journal, 3(1), 23-35.