"One Size E-Commerce Fits All Badly"

According to this E-Commerce Times article,

“[c]heap online shops are now easy to set up, using ‘one-size-fits-all’ e-commerce software, which lets you upload product images, add prices and insert your company logo onto ready-made templates. . . . Luckily such off-the-shelf Web sites need little funding, as they will attract fewer orders:  one size e-commerce fits all badly."

Unfortunately, the use of such software is not the most nefarious or risky path to e-commerce success.  As to certain, specific e-commerce offerings, a cottage industry has developed, marketing “turn key” e-commerce solutions to individuals and small businesses.

 

Some of these “e-commerce solution providers” provide nothing more to their customers than material copied from established e-commerce sites, tailored slightly to satisfy an individual customer’s needs.  Typically, these unscrupulous providers copy from e-commerce industry leaders, who have demonstrated success in online marketing and sales, without regard to their ownership rights to the copied material.  Unless the appropriate parts of their websites are legally protected, the owners of the copied materials have little recourse and are left to compete with sites built from their own effort and expense.

Perhaps, it's just a natural progression of the growing disregard of copyright protections noted by some commentators.