Q & A: Supply management for e-commerce businesses

Supply management for e-commerce businesses
Q & A

1. (Q)  Give one reason why dropshipping helps a retailer

(A) It helps to keep them competitive with Product selection and penetration

2. (Q) What is the difference between an Ecommerce business and an ebusiness?

           (A) E-business is about the transformation of key business processes through

                 the use of Internet technologies. Ecommerce is the process of buying and selling or

                 exchange of products, services and information via computer network

                 and Internet.

3. (Q) What is inventory distortion?

           (A)  merchandise that creates a loss in revenue annually due to deeply discounted

                  overstocks, out-of-stock inventory and losses from unstocked inventory due to a

                  lack of infrastructure to handle retail growth in emerging economies.

4. (Q) When a supplier holds inventory until a consumer sale and then ships directly

                 to the customer on behalf of the retailer it is called?

           (A) Drop shipping

     5)   (Q) Name three challenges to drop shipping

           (A)

                  The need to capture, create and share product information

                  

                   The loss of control as retailers must now rely on their suppliers to ship orders in a

                   timely and expert manner. To ensure good customer service, the suppliers will need

                   to be able to accept electronic orders and provide timely status updates directly to

                   your systems, as well as support specific fulfillment and packaging requirements.

                  Your ecommerce platform will now need to coordinate products from multiple

                  vendors and locations, to start with a consumer order and break it up into multiple

                  vendor orders and, in turn, consolidate order status updates back into a single

                  consumer view.

     6)   (Q) What does the acronym CRM stand for?

           (A) customer relation management

       

    

     7)  (Q) Enslow identified seven (7) fallacies of Web commerce fulfilment, what are

                They?

          (A)  '#1. We’re selling over the Web, so we must be making money over the

                Web, #2 Our differentiation will come from our front end processes, #3. We can

                always do back end integration later, #4 Our logistics operations can handle Web

                commerce fulfilment, #5 Our existing suppliers will support Web commerce, #6 Our

                order management systems can handle Web commerce and #7 We now sell   

                effectively to anyone around the globe'.

     9)   (Q) What are the two macro trends that are impacting the supply chain?

           (A)

                  Internet-based supply and demand.

                

                 The ability for scalable direct-to-consumer models where traditional players can be

                 removed from the equation.

   10)  (Q) Name three (3) benefits of supply chain management

(A)  

     Interoperability with Existing Systems

    

     Multi-Store Capabilities on One Platform

     Enhanced Marketing Opportunities

 

   11)   (Q) Why is supply chain management important for an ebusiness?

           (A) For the  elimination of the geographic constraints on consumer demand through

                  and the removal of the physical barriers of supply with  

                  distributed inventory and advanced supply chain strategies.

   12) (Q) How has eCommerce change how we do business?

         (A)  enhanced supply chain cycle time, speed, and globalisation productivity and has helped  

                with reaching new customers and sharing knowledge across institutions.