How to Succeed in E-commerce?

I was searching online on how to succeed in e-commerce and I came across these points that I thought are appropriate by Steve Windhaus:

Non technically, what is important are

1. Your legal business structure

2. Business Plan

3. Occupational Licensing

4. Sales Taxes

Here, Windhaus describes these as the foundation to opening an e-commerce business.

So after these 4 things are accomplished, technology comes in with:

1. Web site hosting

2. Search Engine Optimization

3. Web site analytics

Out of the above that is mentioned, I would say that most of them are jargon to me, as I am not exactly into the business of e-commerce.

What caught my eye though, was the non-technical part of starting the e-commerce business.

Creating a legal structure, and a business plan may just seem like a must-do, or a basic requirement in the business, but I feel like how good these ideas are can simply make or break the whole e-commerce plan.

Another term that caught my eye was "Website analytics".

From wikipedia, it simply means " the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet date for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage". In the situation of e-commerce, website analytics helps to determine the web site's popularity after advertising, and detects the web site's traffic.

I had in mind to do an online business once - a blog shop. When I had the idea, I never thought it was tough at all, till i actually started doing everything up. Although it is not as tedious and big scale as e-commerce, but it did have the gist of it in there. My partner and I never really considered the technological part of the blog shop. We simply put up the page, and pasted flyers every where in hope of getting a response. We did not consider at all any website analytics, or business plan, neither did we invest in search engine optimization, or any web site hosting. And true enough, we stopped the business in a month.

What I have learnt from this is that e-commerce is not just about creating a website and doing business on it. But it is a creation of a new idea, that could attract attention, one that could sustain and develop.

What Exactly Is GOOGLE?

I bet everyone who owns a computer has utilized Google's search engine at least once before.

If you think google is just one of the many search engines we go to for information scouting, you are certainly wrong. Google's search engine is just the threshold of many unfolding conveniences, and information.

Google is an example of Web 2.0 which allows web-based communication, also allowing users to change information on the internet. It is "a company which does not focus on producing software such as a browser but instead focuses on providing a service based on data. The data here, of course, are the links Web page authors make between sites. Google exploits this user-generated content to offer Web search based on reputation through its "Page Rank" algorithm. Unlike software, which undergoes scheduled releases, a service such as Google is constantly updated, a process called "the perpetual beta"." From this, we know that Google is not just a platform for receiving information, but instead, for sharing.

One article struck me lately from The Straits Times. It is an article entitled "Google Republic versus the People's Republic" which was published on January 23 2010. As we all know, google is currently at "war" with the Chinese government as China is issuing a ban on Google in the country. This is detrimental for Google only because it has diminished Google's "global ambitions".

What captured my attention was not just the fact that there is a discord going on between the two "republics", but the fact that Google is seen to be a "republic", and powerful enough to stand alone as a "country" astonished me. "Through just a blog post on Jan 12, the superbrand grabbed international headlines and cast the emerging superpower as the representative of all that is bad about humanity"(China). Google being such a powerful agent, now, has the ability and the cheek in fact, to deem the Republic of China as a "villian", who is against "freedom and openess".

Upon reflection and some analysis, it is just remarkable to see how Google and China are seen as "on par" in power. We cannot look at Google as "just another search engine" anymore, but instead, Google is now an "interest state" that allows people to live in it, and create a social identity with it.

This has certainly allowed me to understand the great power of the internet that is now a monumental tool in not only some of us, but everyone in the world. Whether the war between both "republics" will result in a win-win, lose-lose or win-lose situation, this battle of two superpowers certainly will influence the global village we live in.

The Founder That Caused A Revolution

The internet is so ubiquitous in the world today that we fail to even realize how this fascinating invention even came about! The internet has become part of our everyday lives, to the extent of making almost every other means of information gathering unnecessary anymore.

When I think about the internet, I do not see anything incredulous about it now, because it has become an "everyday tool"; like a toothbrush, or the food we eat daily.

It is an enlightenment to know that how this great network of information that is so accessible to us now came very basically from an idea, resulting in a creation of the World Wide Web, by a man - Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

"In 1989, Berners-Lee submitted a proposal at CERN to develop an information system that would create a web of information.... In 1990, he wrote the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)—the language computers would use to communicate hypertext documents over the Internet and designed a scheme to give documents addresses on the Internet."

Tim Berners- Lee made the internet possible. Without him, this idea may not even have existed, which is why is was named the "100 most important people of the 20th Century" by Time Magazine. This led me to question, " Why would the creation of the internet be so useful, or rather so revolutionary?" The internet could be like the typewriter, the telephone, or simply like any other information giving device that made an impact, and would die down after a period of time - but it did not.

When Tim Berners-Lee created HTML, URI, and WWW, these functions served as a platform for communicating information to anyone, as long as you have a computer. The computer was invented initially, not with the thought of connecting with the world but the Tim Berners-Lee's idea of the World Wide Wed made this idea possible. In other words, it was an idea that allowed many ideas to become reality. And what made it so appealing, is not just the purpose of providing information but "unit[ing] the world".

Tim Berners-Lee has the initial idea of creating a software for "his personal use to help him remember connections between various people and projects at the lab." From a little thought of wanting to connect better with his colleagues, it resulted in a revolution of the world, and technology. Technology is not the same without the internet, because with technology today, we literally eat, drink and breath "internet".

Knowing that his small idea could lead to a revolution has inspired me to see how minute things can be made wonderful when we start thinking of the bigger picture - of benefiting the world around us. It has also made me understand that a "revolution" is not just a change, but a change that is embedded in our everyday lives, and routines.

This is what the internet has become.