E-commerce Defined

The use of personal computers connected to the global network known as the Internet will push the amount of business conducted online into the multi-billion dollar range by the year 2005. The rate of growth for goods and services is growing geometrically. The fundamentals of e-commerce are the same as any other business with the exception being that transactions are conducted electronically. Both traditional businesses and e-commerce face the same issues:

• Products and services need to be sold
• Merchants need to advertise to attract or pull in customers
• Customers need to be able to research all aspects of a potential purchase
• Customers need to be able to easily complete a purchase
• Customers must receive merchandise in a timely manner
• Customers need to be able to review details of purchases
• Customer service is the main competitive advantage

• Customer-friendly shopping cart system
• One-click ordering system
• Return customer account management
• Order and Shipping management
• Order Transaction Processing for both Credit Cards and Digital Checks and Western Union Wire Transfer
• Tax Calculation
• UPS Shipping Calcuation (other methods as well)
• Database integration

The initial development of an e-commerce solution begins with the discovery stage. Your Lost Horizon account manager will lead the process of defining your site's e-commerce design requirements. The design is not limited to, but includes graphic design, branding and corporate identity, user experience, hosting, traffic monitoring, technology requirements and much more.

Summary

If the time has come for your business to launch or upgrade an e-commerce enabled web site Lost Horizon Interactive is prepared to provide your solution, regardless of scale, from mom and pop sites to full blown online catalogs with thousands of items. Lost Horizon provides solutions for both business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) web sites.

Opportunity

Buying and selling on the Internet has become big business. Forrester Research estimates that by 2002, over $340 billion of U.S. goods and services will be traded on the Internet; IDC estimates that $430 billion will be traded on the Web, worldwide, by 2002. Many companies, such as Amazon.com, are rapidly coming out of nowhere to take away market share from established national and global brands.

Every day more and more businesses are reporting huge success on the Web. The list of companies making hundreds of millions and billions of dollars from their Web sites has grown dramatically. With the Web having become as important as the telephone and television for servicing and reaching customers, time to market, ease of use, and scalability of your e-commerce web site are critical requirements.

Challenge

Quickly building and deploying a professional, capable, user-friendly e-commerce system with scalability is no small task.

An effective e-commerce system consists of a four layered foundation of order entry, payment processing, order fulfillment, and customer service.

Finding and hiring engineers with expertise in system architecture, database design, application design, client design, security, hardware, software, and networking is time-consuming and expensive-and beyond the reach of many IT departments. Many companies do not have the necessary expertise in large-scale, distributed software systems. It is no wonder that 52 percent of large companies are planning to outsource their electronic commerce system development, according to CMP Information Week.

Lost Horizon Electronic Commerce

Lost Horizon offers custom solutions for secure electronic commerce, enabling all of the following on the Web: order entry, payment processing, order fulfillment, and customer service.

Send your inquiries to info@losthorizon.com or call 1-888-527-5252 today.