Logistics and order fulfilment

People shop on the Internet to cut costs, save time and to track down hard to find specialist goods or services. However traditional businesses still have the advantage of immediacy and generally do not have to incur shipping costs. Essentially, trading on-line is a form of mail order but the computer networks underpinning the development of eBusiness make it easier to track and control the process.

Meeting customers' expectations and order fulfilment are the greatest challenges businesses have to face if they want to trade successfully on the Internet. Consumers International,
(www.consumersinternational.org ) recently carried out a survey, consumers@shopping. The survey was funded by the European Union and carried out by consumer organisations in 11 countries. 150 items from 17 countries were ordered, mostly from well-known companies. Many of the items were later returned.

The survey discovered that:

- One in 10 items never arrived.

- Two buyers, from the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, have waited over five months for refunds.

- More than half - 56% - of the products ordered arrived without receipts.

- 73% of traders failed to give crucial contract terms.

- Over 25% gave no address or telephone number.

- 24% were unclear about the total cost of the item that was ordered.

You may think that these findings are rather extreme but they show how many businesses trading on-line have overlooked the most fundamental tenets of customer care. When a customer buys on-line they expect the same standard of service they would receive if buying over the counter. To develop good eBusiness solutions you must reproduce the experience of trading in the real world, while capitalising on the cost and time benefits of on-line trading.

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