Srs Bzns

A long time ago, in a unit far, far away...

It is a period of uncivil boredom. Rebel storemen, sleeping in a hidden bunk, have won their first victory against the evil Regular Officers. During the training, company-line clerks managed to steal staplers and potted plants and the unit's ultimate weapon, the LAPTOP, a powerful device with enough power to display an entire planet. Pursued by the unit's sinister Officers, Corporal Nazreen races through the computer systems, searching for a way to save time and restore items to the unit...

When I saw B2B and the other little acronyms and the like, my mind sent me back to a time where uniforms and salutes were in order, where cameras were banned but guns were available, where food was plentiful but taste was non-existent. I was in charge of Finance & Logistics in a relatively large SAF unit several years ago, and a significant portion of my time in that role was spent making use of something called the ePS B2B Gateway.

The Electronic Procurement System, mostly-referred to as ePS was a system, as the name suggests, that allowed goods and services to be procured via an electronic portal, saving time and effort (and usually cost) for almost everyone involved. I used the system to purchase all manner of things; printer ink, photocopy toners, pens, knives, folding beds, a Twister set, laptops, projectors, fans, food, tree-pruning services, uniforms, pest-control, glow-sticks, laundry removal, paint, bags, badges, scissors, paper, repairs, light-bulbs...

The list is endless.

Which was what made it quite useful, especially for the lone person in charge of getting anything and everything for anyone and everyone in the unit. Making use of the internet, taking advantage of E-Commerce made life that much easier for all parties involved. No longer would you need to thumb though the yellow pages to look for vendors for an obscure item. No longer would you need to make a phone call and wait and try to find out how much a particular item or service costs. Doing business online was a tremednous time- and money-saver, when one considers the scale of the transactions that even a single SAF Unit is involved with per month (an example: printer refills can cost up to one thousand dollars per month).

When I hear of online businesses today, my feelings are mixed. Being the paranoid cynic I am, I'm less than willing to punch in my real address, much less a credit card number when making a transaction online. But then I actually purchased air tickets to Thailand less than two months ago, via Tiger Airways website, saving myself the trouble of either going to the airport (o travel agent) itself or calling them and risk being subjected to an incoherant customer service operator.

I hate it, but I use it. I also hate...

"I bought a new dress today!"

"But I thought you stayed home."

"Ya, I went to this blog..."

How many guys have girlfriends who do that? Yet I'm guilty of the same, having bought T-Shirts and video games online, when such items weren't readily avaialble in stores. One thing that has always annoyed me about following the girlfriend on a "shopping trip" is when she can't find something she likes; it makes the effort put into the actual "going out" seem worthless. But with online shopping such as the increasingly popular "shops" and "stores" that are based in and around blogs, the issue isn't really an issue anymore. From the seller's perspective, you also have to consider that they have little to no start-up costs. No rent. No having to vie for custormers with similar shops in the vicinity.

Or do they?

One of the most difficult things to come to terms with when dealing with the internet is the overwhelming barrage of information that you can get when trying to look for anything. I got over 4 million results when googling "LJ Shop". How am I supposed to know which one (if any) is reliable? Am I feeling lucky? Or do I hope and pray that it isn't #3161337?

There are limitations, of course. Some products and services simply can't be sold or puchased online without more than a little risk. How do you buy spectacles? Perfume? A pet? Even clothes are difficult at times, when you consider that a size "L" shirt may or may not be actually Large enough for some people.

How would I set up an online store, how would I run an E-Business, someone asked me.

It's a hard question to answer well, really. Well, perhaps it's only difficult if you want to make serious money from it. Small-scale ventures are easy enough; my younger sister sells her old (but still wearable) clothes through LiveJournal. Granted, the money she makes is then spent on replacing the lost apparel with more used articles of clothing from virtual strangers, but it goes to show that anyone can do it.

But not everyone can do it for a living, which is what the misconception is today.

How many have splashed the cash on such things only to realise that to create waves, you need to really have enough zeroes to your name? Most of them have ended up with just the one zero in the end, if not finished in the red.

So here's to E-Business and E-Commerce. Maybe one day we will be able to get everything online, and coins will only be used for magic tricks. I personally believe that day is still very far off, if it arrives at all. But then we do nearly everything online already, don't we? Even school assignments. Hmm.