E-commerce is a major contributor to sales globally, with 93.5% of internet users having made at least one purchase through the internet. E-commerce is growing at a rate of 23% per year, and it is expected that it will be a significant sales platform by the year 2040, with 95% of purchases being made online.

What is e Commerce?

E-commerce refers to making business online without interacting with the buyers physically. It is a modern approach to business, and more brands are moving towards e-commerce to boost their sales. E-commerce involves online selling and payments through online payment gateways. While it provides a space for people to sell their products without having a physical store to display their goods, there are also some disadvantages.

Advantages and Disadvantages of eCommerce

Advantages	Disadvantages
Available 24/4	Lack of direct interaction
Larger market	No tactility
Lesser cost	More competition
Convenient buying	No guarantee of quality
More choices	Long delivery time
Detailed product information	Internet access needed
No need to go out	Website crashing
Affordable marketing	Bad reviews cause losses
Access to customer data
Better sales through reviews

Advantages of eCommerce

Available 24/7

Can customers go to their favorite apparel store at 5 in the morning and get the jacket they need for a trip urgently? No.

But can they order? Yes.

When you set up an e-commerce store, you are 24/7 open and available to your customers without any time restriction. They can place an order any time of the day, and you can dispatch their goods at the soonest to engage the customer and convince them to buy from you often.

Larger Market

The world has become a global village, and e-commerce is the best product of this global village. Websites are worldwide, and you can reach potential customers across oceans if you want to. Even a high school student can do it too. E-commerce gives you access to people globally to expand your business by catering to a large number of people.

Lesser Cost

E-commerce stores are a one-time cost and do not require continuous maintenance. While you may need 4 employees to run a physical store, e-commerce stores do not require the same workforce. Online selling also saves the cost of electricity and other forms of maintenance in the store, eventually decreasing your monthly expenditure. E-commerce stores are more automated, avoiding human error and reducing the need for many staff members.

Convenient Buying

Online sales have rocketed in the past years. Do you know why?

E-commerce allows people to buy at the comfort of their homes without going out. Everything they need is readily available on the internet, and they can buy quickly, just with a single click. Many e-commerce stores also provide the option of replacements where they pick the purchased good from your home. E-commerce is every busy shopper’s dream come true.

More Choices

Anyone might not have enough time to visit one store to another, you can always scroll through multiple stores online. The presence of hundreds of options online gives you more choices to select from, offering a wide range of colors, designs, sizes, and material quality. With so many options, you are more likely to easily find what you want.

Detailed Product Information

Another benefit of e-commerce is the information mentioned with each product for ease. Customers do not have to ask the seller about the features of the product as the product description and details give it all out themselves. You can find all information about a product on the e-commerce store or search engines to make the right choice of purchase.

No Need to Go Out

Online buying has made accessibility easy than ever before. If you do not have enough time to go out and buy the pack of cheese for dinner, order it right away, and it will be at your doorstep in a few minutes. While sometimes you have to pay a minimal delivery fee, e-commerce does not only save time but also cuts down fuel costs.

Affordable Marketing

We won’t say that billboards and TV advertisements are gone, but the era of digital marketing has definitely taken over. Now, most businesses are looking forward to digital marketing and making the best use of social media platforms to market their products to a wider audience. Digital marketing costs less than traditional marketing, and your product reaches a global market.

Access to Customer Data

Online selling gives you access to customer data and enables you to design your store according to customer needs. You can add products that your customers usually look for and cater to the needs of potential customers in a better way. By targeting the right customers with the products they need, you can make them choose you more often.

Better Sales through reviews

Reviews on the internet are just like words of mouth but reach more people. Reviews and testimonials are one of the most effective ways to enhance sales through e-commerce. Reviews on the website by your satisfied customers help new buyers make a decision about the product, and you sell more.

Disadvantages of eCommerce

Lack of Direct Interaction

One of the major drawbacks of e-commerce is the lack of direct interaction. Interactivity and body language are two vital components of communication, and they both are lost during online dealing. This loss of interaction during selling products online sometimes makes the customers move to retail shopping to understand the product better.

No Tactility

Besides not being able to communicate face-to-face with the sellers, the customer also misses the experience of touching and trying the product before buying. Many customers want to try a particular product such as shoes, clothes, spectacles, and others to make sure they are the right fit, but this is not possible in online shopping.

More Competition

E-commerce allows everyone to create a website and have their online store, increasing the competition among sellers. Buyers visit multiple stores within minutes and choose the one with better quality and lower price. High competition makes business difficult on e-commerce platforms as customers tend to choose products that cost less, and store-owners have to keep prices competitive.

No Guarantee of Quality

Talking of buying something online, there is no 100% guarantee of the product’s quality when it reaches you. It may be the same product as mentioned, but the rate could be worse than you imagined. When setting up an e-commerce store, it is important to ensure that your quality is unparalleled to keep customers loyal to your brand.

Long Delivery Time

Ordering and receiving goods is incredibly easy with online shopping, but not that quick. It usually takes 2 to 3 business days for the purchases to deliver and more if you are ordering from a distant place. Sometimes people avoid shopping online if the store does not offer urgent delivery if needed and prefer to go and buy from a retail store.

Internet access Needed

E-commerce is highly dependent on the availability of the internet as you cannot buy anything online in the absence of an active internet connection. Internet access is a must for online shopping to add an item to your cart and make payment through the card. Some website functionalities need a high-speed internet connection and may not be accessible to buyers with slow internet.

Website Crashing

While the need for the internet is inevitable when going for e-commerce, it may have a few other problems. Having an e-commerce store always comes with the possibility of your website crashing or having a glitch that may push your customer to move to another site.

Bad reviews cause Huge Losses

Let’s say you have a bad day and deliver a wrong product to a customer, and they leave a bad review. You may try to fix it, but sometimes buyers are very critical about service and do not hesitate to leave a bad review right away.

Reviews are as risky as beneficial they are for e-commerce. Good reviews can help you get more customers and direct them to your website; bad reviews can stop potential customers from buying from you.

Frauds

Online shopping comes with numerous security issues and has higher chances of fraud. As people usually pay for purchases through their credit or debit cards, there’s always a risk of stealing information leading to money fraud. If any such scam happens after shopping through your site, the customer usually leaves a bad review, and the word spreads like wildfire. Ensure a safe shopping experience for your customers by providing security and cashback when needed.

The Bottom Line

E-commerce is growing massively, hundreds of females started the business with low investment in recent years at there are a wide market and hundreds of product options to sell and the dimensions of shopping are changing. Now more people are moving towards online shopping as it offers numerous advantages like having more options, getting all information about the product, and the possibility of ordering from an online store any time of the day.

Besides the advantages, some disadvantages also come along, like lengthy delivery time and uncertainty about the quality of the product. Despite the disadvantages, e-commerce is expected to expand more with most purchases and transactions made online. If you are looking to set up online, give it a try with any of these profit generating ideas.

Commerce belongs to the branch of business. It is related to the process of trade and any kind of activity happening between two people and parties with the exchange of money.

The main role of commerce in business is distribution. Whatever the products are produced. If there is no availability of resources and raw material on time then there is no product ready for sale.

Commerce help in the distribution of all required resources by efficiently calculating and analyzing the situation so that the consumption process will be completed on time.

According to James Stephenson: Commerce is the well-planned process for the exchange of goods and services between two parties in the industrial world.

In a wide way: Commerce is that part of a business that includes all, directly and indirectly, activities related to buying and selling of any product with the exchange of money.

Importance of Commerce

There is other importance of commerce which are mentioned below:

• Satisfy human demand
• Raise standards of living
• Commerce generates link between producer and consumer
• Increase employment opportunity
• Increase the economy
• Help in the expansion of trade and aids
• Commerce help in growth in industrial development
• Encourage international trade by promoting its advantages
• Help underdeveloping country
• Commerce help in emergencies.

Satisfy Human Demand

Human demands are increasing day by day. Scholars divide human demands into two classes that are named as basic demands and secondary demands. Food, health, education, and a peaceful environment are included in basic needs while in secondary demand luxuries of life like electronics, vehicles, and easy means of communication are included.

Commerce help in the distribution of all required resources and raw material need for the consumption of product and goods on time. It also plays a vital role in trading which helps in the availability of any product and technology to the whole world. By this commerce somehow fulfills human never-ending desire and also promotes social welfare.

Raise Standard of Living

The standard of living relates to the lifestyle of members of society. If the majority numbers of people can afford to consume more and advanced products then their standard of living is high. To raise the standard of living, commerce plays a significant role by making every product available for every person around the globe.

To consume expensive and advanced products, consumers should be able to secure them first. Commerce basically helps to manage the right thing at the right place and thus able to improve the standards of living of humans.

Commerce generate link between consumer and producer

Products are produced for means of consumption. Consumption of products is the ultimate goal of companies and manufacturers. Commerce creates a link between seller and buyer through wholesalers and retailers. So that the product can reach their consumers on time.

Commerce helps to provide complete product information and specification to consumers through advertisements and salesmen. By conducting marketing research manufacture are well aware of the likes and dislikes of consumers.

This help to locate those specifications in a product to meet consumers’ need. By this commerce create a direct link between the manufacturer of the product and the consumer.

Increase employment opportunity

The growth of the commerce industry and trade increases the requirement of employees in their related corporate sectors like banks, transport, warehouse, and marketing.

The increase in their financial, marketing, and production process need more worker to handle it. It boosts the employment rate of the country by providing job opportunities to millions of people in it.

Increase the Economy

GDP of any country is directly related to production. Production and manufacturing contribute 80 percent of the net income of the country. Commerce helps in the growth of production and consumption of the product.

It also helps in the export and imports of goods from other countries. If any country needs raw material for the production of any good then they can import it through effective commerce. Thus we can say that commerce has a major role in the growth of the economy.

Help in the Expansion of trade and Aid

With the growth in the trade and commerce sector. There is a need for expansion and modernization seems in aids of trade. Aids of trade are related to sectors like banking, transport, finance, and marketing. With smooth and well-organized commerce, these means of aid to trade can be modernized and expanded to meet advanced world requirements.

Commerce help in growth in industrial development

Commerce helps in the smooth process of production and industrial development. Without efficient commerce, Keeping records and managing the data is very difficult. Commerce help to meet the consumer’s need by providing the desired product on time.

While on the other hand, it provides raw materials and goods to the manufacturer so that the production process will not be delayed. Hence we can say that commerce help in an increase of the growth in industrial development and production in the country.

Encourage International Trade

Through commerce, countries can exchange their surplus goods and products with other countries. With easy transportation and communication, countries can buy and sell their products internationally and earn foreign money. Foreign trade has some laws and international standards that save the countries from any loss and fraud.

Help under developing country

Underdeveloping and developing countries can import skilled labor and technical information from developed countries while developed countries can import raw material from under developing countries. These exchanges help to make the financial condition of the undeveloped countries stable.

Commerce help in Emergencies

During emergencies like natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, and wars. Commerce help to locate the essential requirement like food, medicine, and other reliefs to those areas for help.

Conclusion

Commerce is related to business. Effective commerce increases employment opportunities and demands of workers in its related sectors like banking, marketing, warehouses, and transport. Commerce helps to manage the record and data for efficient results.

It increases the industrial development and production level of the country. Commerce also plays a vital role in import and export and directly impacts countries’ GDP. So if countries pay interest in their commerce sector then it will give them benefits in different ways.

A joint venture can be generally defined as a business consensus in which more than one parties – shared owners – agree to pool their individual resources for some common business purpose. In doing so, each party holds responsibility of sharing the costs, profits, losses, and risks equally or as per their shares.

The term ‘joint venture’ generally means investment and typically entails a type of strategic partnership of individuals or companies, and that a particular partnership for which the joint venture is made, is expected to grow by the parties.

Although quite similar to a partnership, it exhibits some key differences with the latter. For example, while a joint venture is oriented about a single project, partnerships are usually about the ongoing business(s) in all regards.

Some other characteristics of the joint venture which are worth mind bearing are:

• Equally shared profits, losses and expenses.
• Termination when a project is completed (unless stated otherwise).
• The death of a person (also called as a joint venture) does not terminate the joint venture.
• No joint venture holds the power to terminate the joint venture in the middle of the project and thus the project has to be completed.
• Each party has a complete control to manage all the assets designed to be used in the joint venture, and
• A contract must exist between the parties entailing the workings of the joint venture.

There can be many types and varieties of joint ventures depending upon the scenarios under which a joint venture is being executed. To understand this, let us look at some of the types with examples to not only gain a comprehensive understanding about different concepts used in business regarding to joint ventures but also their possible applicabilities.

Affiliate Partnerships / affiliate marketing

An affiliate partnership is a type of joint venture in which two individuals, programs or businesses come in league with each other to promote the products of both the parties. It has also become the most common way of earning money online, and once established it can be a good source of passive income too.

For example, a blogger can become an affiliate venturer in that it affiliates a selected company e.g., by placing a link that would lead the readers directly to the site about which the blog has been written. In this way the blogger has done the job of promoting that company’s product via the affiliate link.

Affiliate Blogs are the best examples of an affiliate venturing. This is a product review site that will publish reviews regarding different types of products available on Amazon compiling them into lists and comparison tables ordered 1 to 10. This way, this site might be funded by Amazon which in turn gains traffic from another market channel which can be Google.

Real Estate Joint Ventures

It is a type of joint venture in which two or more parties agree to compile resources and work mutually for the development of a real estate project. Most common are the scenarios in which experts in the field of real estate management work with capital providers in the business.

A real estate joint venture can be explained by a scenario in which there is a company which owns a piece of land far away from where the company is located.

So, they find a person who lives in the same place where they own land and also that person holds expertise in construction and real estate management.

In this way, a joint venture can take place between these two parties whereby the company takes the responsibility of providing the capital and the expert takes care of the responsibilities if building the office.

Financing Agreements

It is a bit riskier type of joint venture agreement because it involves getting financial assist from a private party. It helps one to execute the business which might have been halted due to lack of proper capital investment. But, for risk management, often it is advisable to hire business lawyers for insurance of one’s legal rights.

Vertical Agreements

These are the agreements between two parties or organizations belonging to a production or distribution chains. These groups / parties / organizations create joint ventures thus coming together for a common goal with a given market.

It is typically a case in market between buyers and suppliers. In such cases, maximum gains are usually attained by suppliers while limiting the gains for buyers.

A suitable example for this type of joint venture comes from VitracEgypt – an Egyptian jam company. A person named Abdel Nour, the founder of his jam company, went into a joint venture with an Egyptian company Vitrac so that this company provides surplus fruits of Egypt and a French partner for providing the appropriate equipment and techniques for production of fruit jams.

Horizontal Agreements

A horizontal joint venture is a type of partnership in which different companies being in the same line of the business and transactions happens between these partner companies.

Moreover, these different companies may function so that e.g., if they are involved in selling a product, they will do so to their customers.

The term “finance” is associated with revenue and expenditure. Public finance is a branch of economics that deals with the government’s revenue and expenditures of an economy. If it is related to the private sector, it is called private finance.

Finance includes those means by which we make various types of payment. It may be defined as the provision of money at the time of need. In other words, it is the arrangement of money sources and the acquisition of funds for the satisfactory conduct of business activities.

Finance consists of providing and utilizing the money, capital rights, credit and funds of any kind which are employed in the operation of an enterprise.

George Terry

It may thus refer to investing in borrowing and spending of money with proper manners for the operation of the business.

Finance is important and essential for the success of any enterprise. Without proper finance, no business can be run smoothly. So a sufficient amount of capital must be provided in order to achieve desired results from the activities.

Sources of Business Funds

The balance sheet represents the amount that is supplied by the contributors. Assets are shown on the right-hand side of the balance sheet which refers to the use of funds. Liabilities are on the left side of the balance sheet which shows the sources of funds. These funds are employed temporarily by the creditors and are expected ultimately to be paid back with the sum they have advanced to the business. But owners make a permanent investment of funds to the business.

Creditors

This source of loan is obtained for short term intermediate and long periods. The repayment of this loan is made on an installment basis if it is more than one year. Creditor’s fund is generally grouped into the following main titles on the liabilities side of the Balance sheet.

Accounts Payable

This is the result of the supply of goods services to the customers. No credit document is used in this kind of credit dealings.

Notes Payable

It arises from the sale of goods, the supply of services, or a loan of funds from the financial institution. It is represented by a written document i.e. promissory note etc.

Securities

Large-size firms may issue secured or unsecured bonds or promissory notes when various term funds are required. It is divided up among a number of creditors. Each creditor holds written evidence or promises to pay for his share of the loan on a future date.

Mortgage

It represents that the firm has accepted a loan from the commercial bank or investment bank for a long period of time against the security of building, land, and machinery.

Outstanding

It refers to the accumulation of indebtedness amount up to the date of the closing books. These generally include the items which have accrued but have not been actually paid. They represent accumulating wages, rent, salaries, interest, and taxes which are found on the liabilities side of the Balance sheet.

Owners

The owner’s investment appears in the Balance sheet by various heads in various forms of Business Organization.

Sole Tradership

The invested amount by the owner may be increased by profit and decreased by losses and withdrawal. The owner’s interest in a sole tradership generally finds a single title in the Balance sheet.

Partnership

Owner’s interests are generally considered similar to the sole traders in the Partnership. But in the partnership, the profit is distributed among the number of partners and if there is any loss, the same partners are to bear it. Therefore the owner’s interest in the partnership is not constant but it may increase or decrease at a rate varying with the profit or loss of the firm.

Differences Between Public & Private Finance

Private: It deals with the revenue and expenditure of the private sector.

Public: It deals with revenue and expenditure of the government sector (public sector)

Time Period

Public finance is related to one year time period whereas private finance is concerned with daily, weekly, and monthly budgets, etc.

Income vs Expenditure

In public, revenue follows expenditure. On the other hand, in private finance expenditure follows revenue.

Deficit Financing

In the case of the deficit budget, Govt. can issue new notes. On the other hand, the private sector has no authority to issue new notes.

Nature of Budget

In the public sector, the deficit budget is appreciable. In the private sector, the surplus budget is appreciable.

Compulsory Loans

The government can take compulsory loans from different financial institutions to meet its expenditure whereas the private sector cannot do it.

Secrecy

A government budget is no more secret, rather Govt. publicizes its budget through T.V, Radio, etc. On the other hand, the private budget is tried to be kept secret.

Nature of Projects

In public finance, Government has to complete long term projects. On the other hand, the private sector has a short terms project to complete.

Nature of changes

Public finance is concerned with remarkable changes whereas the private sector is concerned with minor changes.

Written Document

A public budget is a written document whereas a private budget is not a written document.

Audit System

Govt. revenue and expenditure are regularly checked by an audit system. On the other hand, there is no audit system in private finance.

Foreign Assistance

The Government can depend upon foreign assistance but in private finance, there is no chance of any foreign aid.

Direct or Indirect Source of Income

In public finance, the source of income is indirect i.e., various taxes whereas in private finance source of income is direct.

Prior Sanction

Govt. takes prior sanction from its cabinet, national assembly, senate, etc whereas, no prior sanction is required from any authority.

Future Planning

There is long term planning while in private finance short term planning is the motive.

Use of Financial Resources

In public, the main objective is the social welfare of the people whereas, in private resources are used just for maximum personal satisfaction.

Record of Finance

The private may or may not keep the record of its finance whereas Govt. keeps the permanent record of its finance.

Finally

We can conclude that the finance of both the private and public sectors is concerned with revenue and expenditures. Anyhow, we can differentiate private and public finance on the basis of certain grounds.