The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Ebusiness

Ebusiness

Personally, I'm not a fan of the word ebusiness. Supposedly ebusiness is good because it means business will be conducted electronically, which is supposedly the way of the future. In reality, I find that phrase to be overall negative because it's implying that anything that takes place online (and there's a lot more than just business) are somehow inferior and less meaningful than interactions with other humans in person or over the telephone. The real issue with ebusiness is this: when businesses conduct their products and services via the internet or by phone (both digital communications), people have no alternative but to engage in these transactions; yet they’re often not getting what they deserve from these companies. In order to resolve this issue, companies are forced to conduct business online and over the phone in order to reach their customers. When companies can no longer rely on a physical (in person) or face-to-face location as the one place where they can interact with their customer base on a regular basis, they turn to the internet as a way of reaching their customers.

In short, ebusiness is based on the idea of leveraging modern technology in order for businesses to improve customer service while saving time and money by avoiding human interaction in most situations. This is based on the assumption that humans are somewhat selfish and lazy when it comes to conducting transactions with one another (especially related to products and services). It's true that in some cases a computer can function as a better intermediary between two humans, especially when the customer is conducting an order for industrial quantities of the same item or when they are conducting an order that requires more technical knowledge than most people possess. In these cases, computers can serve to make the transaction easier and/or faster. Yet on so many occasions people conduct transactions with one another in which people must be involved on both sides of the transaction in order to conduct business correctly. Two recent examples of this are cases where people were sold a particular car and decided to either return it for a refund or for a replacement vehicle. In both cases, the buyers were less than happy with the end result. In the first case, a couple in Texas bought a used car from an individual that was priced at $5,000 (with only 36,000 miles on it). The seller assured the buyer that this was an excellent deal based on him having owned the car for 5 years and only putting 12,000 miles on it (thus making it like new). He also pointed out that although there is one small scratch on the rear bumper (about 2 inches long), he would be willing to repair this scratch if they wanted him to. The car looked very good and sounded even better, so they decided to buy it. What the sales person did not point out was that the car had two (2) catalytic converters and one (1) oxygen sensor missing, which is why he was selling the car so cheap. He got lucky; the buyers did not notice this issue until after they signed the contract for sale. They immediately went back to him and asked him what he intended to do about it since this would prevent them from registering their new vehicle because it would be considered “un-roadworthy” due to a mechanical failure on the vehicle itself. The seller did not even bother to respond to their requests for resolution. This led the buyers to file a dispute with their credit card company; needless to say, they filed a case with the Better Business Bureau and escalated their complaint to a local TV station (who ultimately did nothing as well).

In the second case, a family in Tennessee purchased a car from a private party through an advertisement on Ebay. After giving the seller $30,000 (in cash) for this vehicle, they found out that one of the door panels wasn't installed correctly and it appeared that several parts of it had been replaced with cheap knockoffs instead of actually fixing them. They immediately contacted the seller in order to resolve this issue; however he refused to respond.

Conclusion: In both cases, the buyers were left in the dark regarding details of the cars they were buying from a private party and an individual based out of China. In the first case, people could have filed a dispute with their credit card company or in the second case a person could have gone to their local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to file an official complaint against this individual. Yet neither of these “easy” options are available for people in these situations since they would be forced by law to communicate with one another at some point. As it stands now, I find that ebusiness is just another way for businesses to get away with selling products and services that are inferior and often times physically dangerous if used by the general public.