Many of the promises of e-commerce are postponed by two critical factors in the development of this business model: the security of the transaction system – or rather the buyer's confidence that the system is secure – and the final result of the shopping experience. All industry analysts agree on these aspects, but much more importance has been given to the issue of security: "As long as the Internet cannot guarantee the security of transactions, an accelerated development of electronic commerce cannot be expected."
The issue of the final result of the shopping experience had been relegated until recently for a simple reason: the vast majority of e-commerce transactions are carried out in the United States and there is already a logistics infrastructure – inherited from the years of development of catalog commerce – that ensures customer satisfaction. and produces greater confidence in the model.
Despite that, complaints from North American buyers were heard during the last Christmas season for the non-compliance of e-commerce sites in the dispatch of products before Christmas.
Accounts for e-commerce
As an alternative to solve this problem, the company From2.com was born, a commercial logistics provider with a global reach that bases its business model on a software solution called Global Delivery Cost Calculator (GDCC) and the ability to classify any product considering import tariffs, value added taxes, surcharges, shipping costs, etc.
"Our goal is to enable internationally companies that are doing e-commerce domestically, whether B2B or B2C," says José Chao, vice president of business development at From2.com. "Initially we started with North American companies that want to go out into the world, whether it is Europe, Asia or Latin America. But now we are starting to do it in what we call the F2F market, foreign to foreign, Chilean or Peruvian companies that want to sell their products in other countries."
The GDCC is a software that runs down the customer's website and calculates exactly the transportation and nationalization costs of each product offered. However, From2.com does not sell the software but the complete logistics service because before assembling the online calculator, an exhaustive research work From2.com carried out, item by item, country by country, to determine the tariffs and trade restrictions of each product also looking for the best way to import each one or combinations of these.
A central database with all the information collected feeds the calculators of each of the e-commerce customers. In seven tenths of a second, any customer's trading app can calculate the final price of the product put at the buyer's door.
Chao emphasizes the fact that From2.com is not a conveyor but a logistics expert. "There's a lot of hardware on the market and we're like the software that makes sense of hardware." The From2.com platform optimizes the routes that the product must follow to reach the customer's door depending on whether it is books, computers or large industrial machines. The company centralizes its operations in the central warehouse of Miami, near the airport, and from there goods are distributed around the world using different "hardware" as Chao calls it.
The business model
The main focus of From2.com is on B2B (Business to Business) businesses since it is the area where electronic business will have the greatest growth. In the background, From2.com serves B2C businesses and, finally, B2B and B2C auctions. These are models that will be very important and that can become an important part of the business.
While most of the world's e-commerce takes place within the United States and significant growth is expected in e-commerce between the United States and other countries, From2.com is already developing projects in Chile, Argentina and Peru for companies that want to sell their products beyond their borders.
For now, the limit that From2.com assigned to the products that can be dispatched is that it fits in a container. There is machinery that can be disassembled and distributed in several containers, it does not matter. However, in the future, From2.com will be able to ship any product, no matter how large. In a short time there will be no limitations on e-commerce.
