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Brick And Mortar Stores Vs. E-Business

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A computers have become more mainstream, more and more operations are conducted online. From online bill pay to simple searches, as one would do with the yellow pages, to online shopping, the Internet has helped shape the way computers are used today. With the Dotcom boom of the mid-nineties and early 2000s, ecommerce and e-business really started to take off. The Internet has given way to some of the biggest economic booms in history. The invention of smartphones and tablets has allowed for consumers to have instant access to the Internet, right at one's fingertips. While e-business is becoming more mainstream, and has its advantages, e-business also has its disadvantages.
Brick and Mortar Stores versus E-business
Barnes and Noble, as it is …show more content…

(Lorette, 2015). For Barnes & Noble, e-business has allowed customers to search for, purchase, and download (via their Nook e-reader feature) books, journals, mugs, and various other products at any time of day. Consumers who would not otherwise have access to a Barnes & Noble brick and mortar store are able to shop online as well. By having the domain name they do, barnesandnoble.com or BN.com, Barnes & Noble has been able to cut back on its marketing. When a consumer searches online for book stores, Barnes & noble is one of the top, if not the first, item that pulls up in an Internet search. Most domain name and web hosting companies allow for the purchase of top billing in search engines, such as Google. This feature allows more customers and potential customers to reach Barnes & Noble. Another advantage Barnes & Noble has by conducting e-business is its access to both in-print and out-of-print and hard to find books. By offering a wider range of products, Barnes & Noble is able to increase its customer …show more content…

Online operations leave a company vulnerable to threats concerning data security. While e-business continues to grow in popularity, there is always going to be those who do not trust inputting their credit card or banking information into the computer. It seems that there are always stories of some company or another getting hacked. Since most e-businesses, such as Barnes & Noble, keep detailed records of customers there is a great risk of loss should this information get breeched. Legal issues also pose a disadvantage to e-businesses as different states have different regulations and the Federal government has its own set of regulation that supersedes those of the states. “For example, the U.S. Small Business Administration states that a web business generally isn't required to collect sales taxes when selling to customers in states where it doesn't have physical operations” (Hamel, n.d.). Another disadvantage of e-business is the lack of payment options. Some people only like to use cash. With e-business, cash is not always an

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