Retailing

Retailing

The impact of ICT in retailing that a lot of people these days use internet to shop online in such as Amazon, eBay etc. there is some advantages and disadvantages of using the online shopping websites which I am going to describe now.

EFTPOS

When the user registers to online shopping or wants to purchase an item in online, he will have send his Credit/debit card details for authorization. It’s not really safe to share the bank details through out online because we never know really who we are sending to our personal details. 

Stock controls

The business who sells their products via online is able to keep the details of stock quantities, prices and also restock limits.

Internet Shopping

The impact of ICT on internet shopping is that the user will be able to purchase the products via online by using the credit and debit cards to make the purchases. The user are able to buy the product from any online shopping and anytime.

When the user purchase the product from online for e.g. if he doesn’t like the product and he wants to return it and get the refund , he can send the product back to the seller but it can cost money to return the product such as postage cost and packaging.

Some sellers do not accept the refunds; it can be hard time for the user to get his money back.

Some online shopping such as EBay, Amazon can be secured and safe for shopping using the credit/debit card details. But there is some ‘’fake’’ online shopping websites which can steal the users money from the bank account and then user won’t receive his product. So it’s better to be careful and buy stuff from the trusted online websites.

Barcodes:

The barcode is the unique identification of all items which can check/scan the digit numbers and can search the stock control system.

The impact of ICT on the barcodes, is that all the stock is being save in the database , the businesses are able to see how many items is being sold out and how many is left .

EPOS

Is a electronic point of sale which can read the barcode , communicate with the stock control system, check the total price of the product , print the receipt which shows the names and prices of the products which being sold and also it can calculate the change.

The impact of ICT in EPOS is the people can get the receipt and see how much they have spend and what they bought, also the cashier is able to check the product prices in easy way only by scanning the product barcode which is most often located at the back of the product and then she will be able to see the price.

The disadvantages of the EPOS is that sometimes errors can show up such as instead of scanning once of the same product, it might scan twice and show the same price twice of the same product.

Loyalty Cards:

Loyalty cards helps to indentify the customer details , tracking the customers spending habits, offering the discounts to the customer and collecting the data used for data mining and track the customers.

The Impact of ICT on the loyalty cards is that the business, services etc. is able to track down their customers and see how many buys their products. Also the customers might receive some reward or discounts when they get loyalty card after the purchased the product.

The business is able to keep on track their customers and collect the data which comes from the customers.