Good candidates for e-commerce

Suitable Products
The first step in constructing an e-commerce site is determining whether your products are suitable to be sold over the Internet.

Brand Names
The most evident products to sell over the Internet are commodity or brand name products.
Commodity products are those the consumers understand and therefore know what they are getting, even if they have never heard of the manufacturer.

Name Recognition
A brand name immediately identifies the manufacturer and worth of the product. Books are brand name products that are currently being sold in great numbers over the Internet.
Books contain a publisher’s brand name and an author’s brand name.
Consumers finding a new website would not query, and can right away recognize, the quality of a John Grisham book published by Doubleday.

Potential clients may query the unnoticed value and legitimacy of buying a product over the Internet from a company they do not know.
They may have reservations that a product purchased from an unknown website will be delivered to their home or office. If your product does not fit into the commodity or brand name category, or your company is not well known, you will need to provide supporting information to your customers so that he/she can appreciate the quality and trust that you will deliver the product.


The growth of online insurance
The traditional insurance and brokerage industries generate a lot of paper in the transaction process, which Mr. Franco called an “archaic” method of doing business.

What’s more, the labour-intensive demands on consumers who comparison-shop for insurance--driving from carrier to carrier and filling out separate forms at each stop--is alleviated through an online marketplace such as InsWeb, Mr. Franco said.

“Step one was online banking and [equities] trading,” Mr. Franco said.

“Insurance is sure to follow; it’s just a matter of time.”

American City Business Journals Inc

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