eBusiness - What is it really?

Dictionary.com describes eBusiness as: “electronic business, any business conducted using electronic media; any business that makes some or all of its revenue via Internet technology”

Now whilst this advancement in technology has assisted many of us to do some everyday tasks with ease, such as going online to pay acccounts or giving us access to stores where we can purchase and pay for goods of choice and have them delivered to our door without having to leave our comfortable armchair, there are other considerations…

So is eBusiness a change for good?

Let’s consider a few things, Doing business online lacks one key element and that is face to face contact with the company or store owner.

Offline or in the normal day to day world we purchase products and services from real people, we interact with them and often build long term associations with suppliers that go the extra distance to assist us.

To form this kind of relationship online is much more difficult and is further complicated by some of the things that happen daily online that makes us naturally suspicious as to the legitimacy of offers being made.

So what is it that has made us think this way?

Well anyone that has email can testify to the fact that they receive several and sometimes hundreds of unwanted messages in their inboxes everyday…commonly called spam.
Now most of these messages are being received because your email address has been harvested somewhere and sold off to others who have no hesitation in sending out message after message in the hope that someone will purchase what they are offering.
The sad fact is that unfortunately this will continue, why, well their are many people that do buy products from these unsolicited messages and whilst the spammers are making a return for their efforts they will not stop.

Some of these spam messages have a more serious side, they are not all about trying to sell you something, many are sent by those that choose to disrupt your life and get some kind of kick out of it.
Many of these messages contain viruses that can harm your computer system, in some cases completely disable it if you make the wrong choice and accidentally open the message.

These people (Spammers) are not satisfied with filling your inbox with junk they are now running automated systems that post spam messages on forums, message boards and Blogs just to further annoy.

Spammers don’t have to look you in the eye like your offline supplier does, they hide behind different names and addresses and this has caused great harm to those running a reputable Online Business, credibility is hard to achieve in a market like this.

So is eBusiness really a change for good?

Many would say yes but given the fact that we have now in many cases lost that face to face contact with our suppliers and we lack confidence and trust in those providing services online maybe it is not a change for good.

We can all relate to the material that we often receive at home in our letterboxes, commonly referred to as “Junk Mail” but this has one real difference to the material we receive online, in our country at least if we place a note on our letterbox stating “No Junk Mail Please” then we limit the amount of unwanted material we receive, unfortunately we can’t do the same with our email inbox and the Can Spam Act that was introduced recently has not changed things one bit either.

So in summary eBusiness definitely has some benefits but unfortunately we still have tread with caution…as the well known saying goes “Be Careful out There”