Buying On The Net

Business jargon is changing faster than the business models. So what will the future models be - B2B, B2C or good old F2F? Haven't heard of the last one? Don't worry, it's not a new type of e-commerce system, it's the simple face-to-face commerce we have been used to for so long! The question is - are we ready to go from F2F to the B2B and B2C era?

When I was in the fourth standard, I learnt the first important lesson in buying goods over the counter. I was sent to the electrical shop in the neighborhood to buy a Philips bulb. I promptly went to the shop and came back with the bulb. When my father looked at the bulb, he noticed that the logo on the packing and the bulb was not Philips but

Dilips!

He sent me back to the shop to return it and get the real Philips bulb. What the shop-owner told me was very important. "It's your duty to check the goods before you leave the shop. Now I can't do anything about it!" he said.

Today, when the time has come to start buying goods on the Net, I find that very lesson which I had learnt in my childhood days still holds true. I wonder whether we can easily tune up ourselves to e-commerce. Can we trust each other enough to start buying on the Net? What if I meet that typical shop-owner on the Net again? You can pass any number of cyber laws and IT bills, but there is no substitute for mutual trust.

Trust and credibility are two things that can make or break a business house. The good news here is that manufacturers will not bypass their channel partners and start selling on the Net so soon in India! Consider buying a PC on the Net in India. Would you buy a PC on the Net or rather buy it from the friendly neighborhood "Mukeshbhai" or

"Jayeshbhai" ?

What are the points you need to consider before making up your mind whether to buy online or real time? They may vary from person to person but can largely be listed as the following:

• Reliability
• Price
• Delivery time
• After-sales service

Reliability and price will mostly go together, as we generally expect more reliable products to be costlier. Reliability of the system is not much dependant on whether you buy it on the Net or over the counter. But as I have mentioned earlier, trust is very important. I must be sure of getting exactly what I ordered. Building trust for a faceless web site is much more difficult than building trust face to face.

Delivery time is another very important factor, because people generally take a buying decision at the last moment and might need the product delivered immediately. Buying on the Net will always need longer delivery times if a highly efficient countrywide delivery system is not in place. For the friendly Mukeshbhai, the material is already delivered to the city where he operates. All he has to do is buy the material and put it together! He can probably deliver your system within three to four working days.

On the contrary, see what a seller of PCs on the Net has to say about the delivery time. This is how it goes - "The estimated time it will take to build the systems you order and ready them for shipping–the lead time–begins with the release of your order to the manufacturing facility. Release to manufacturing can occur only after full acceptance and approval of your specified payment option."

After-sale service being so important for proper utilization of the systems, you must have your reputation for great after-sale service already built before you start selling on the Net. For me, it is easier to get hold of Mukeshbhai's service engineer quickly in case of any problems than it is to get a service engineer from a Net-based seller, unless he has a local presence everywhere.

You can invest a lot of money in developing a great e-commerce web site with high technology applications and start selling on the Net. But without the trust factor built into your organization, buyers will always want to check face to face that what they are buying is the real Philips stuff and not the Dilips variety!

To make the transition from F2F to B2C and B2B, the key is mutual trust and not just a great looking, high-tech, e-commerce web site.