Re: EDI vs E-Commerce Question - Pardon my ignorance...

*SNIP

OK, so I MUST be missing something here with E-Commerce, PLEASE
enlighten me !! :-)
*ENDSNIP

Chuck,

You have pointed out where EDI makes more sense than e-commerce where the
trading partners are able to use EDI, however many companies are just not
able to or want to put up EDI for order and PO transfer.  Where e-commerce
does step in though is when the customer wants to check on order/shipping
status, verify pricing, availability, etc.  If all of your customers would
rather use EDI and put up all the transaction sets needed for order
tracking, it will work better for you, but I have never seen that happen
outside of the automotive industry, and with WalMart, Kmart, and Sears.

Maybe the best suggestion is a hybrid of e-commerce and EDI.  Biggest
question is:  What do your customers want, and what is the competition
doing?

The AS/400 is a great e-commerce machine, but given your background, maybe
an RS/6000 with Net.Commerce or Domino would be a good start.  (sorry for
the heresy but sometimes the AS/400 is not the solution)

Just MHO.

Jim Oberholtzer
Computech Resources, Inc.
414/785-8111


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