CONCLUSION

Regardless whether the e-commerce business is a start-up, a brick-and-mortar, a home-based business, small, medium, or large, all of the solutions discussed in this chapter do not come without cost. There are capital expenditures and development costs associated with integration, and channel conflict in regards to any type of consolidation.

Order processing and fulfillment is a website’s last form of customer contact. Investing in a logistics strategy is critical to a website’s continued growth. Whatever the cost and ultimate solution, it is clear that new methods and processes must be utilized for a web-based business to expect long-term survival in the e-commerce arena.