Table of content: The following content will be exhaustively discussed;
· Electronic commerce overview
· The E commerce process and various business activities.
· Evolution of e-commerce
· Early Development of e-commerce
· Business applications
Electronic commerce overview
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, consists of the buying and selling of products orservices over electronic systems such as the internet and other computer networks. It is more than just buying and selling products online. It also includes the entire online process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing and paying for products and services. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread internet usage. The use of e-commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, and online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.
Read this:Top 10 Nigeria online shopping sites to easily make Purchase
A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailors’ and online retail is sometimes as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.
Electronic commerce is generally considered to be sales of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.
Commerce means online processing developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing and paying for products and services transacted on internet worked with the help of worldwide networks of business partners.
E-commerce uses a wide range of technologies like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Electronic Mail, and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).
The Ecommerce process includes the following business activities.· Pre sales and post sales support
· Internal Email and messaging
· Online publishing of corporate documents and forms
· Advertising and promotion of products and services
E-commerce is potentially the most important development since the industrial revolution. Its evolution during the past few years is a result of the transition from private or closed networks to open, public network platform, such as the internet. In that sense, e-commerce can be seen as an evolution rather than a revolution.
EDI | EFT |
System for structuring and exchanging transaction related information, in standardized formats. Developed in 1960s, acceptability increased only when major automobile and retail electronics industries adopted this system in the early 1980s | An amalgamation of technologies for using computer and telecommunication facilities to transfer funds. Developed in the 1970s, use limited mostly to the banking industry |
System for structuring and exchanging transaction related information, in standardized formats.
Developed in 1960s, acceptability increased only when major automobile and retail electronics industries adopted this system in the early 1980s
An amalgamation of technologies for using computer and telecommunication facilities to transfer funds. Developed in the 1970s, use limited mostly to the banking industry .The earliest form of e-commerce was EDI and EFT, in use for the past several decades.
EDI and EFT were relatively slow to spread because they were difficult to integrate with applications and were expensive and hard to manage. These costs and complexities limited e-commerce adoption to a minority of large companies who could invest the time, expertise and money necessary to develop value-added networks (“VAN”) for undertaking transactions.
The internet proved to be a stepping stone towards the large-scale development of e-commerce. Though the initial traces of the internet were seen in the late 1960’s when the internet reached a broad public consciousness and attained worldwide acceptability.
Hailed as the most significant development of the century, e-commerce is engendering a wide array of innovation businesses, markets and trading communities, creating diverse functions and revenue streams.
There are so many confusions and problems in Ecommerce but the most important is security or privacy issue. Fear of corporate disrupt, theft of personal identities have lead to cautions approach in e-commerce business. The emerging services and security technologies such as Advance Encryption techniques certification and digital signatures are producing a significant impact on ecommerce and user confident.
Early Development of e-commerce
Originally, electronic commerce was identified as the facilitation f commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.
From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee invented the WorldWideWeb web browser and transformed and academic telecommunication network into a worldwide everyman everyday communication system called internenet/www.Commercial enterprise on the internet was strictly prohibited by NSF until 1995.
Business applications
Some common applications related to electronic commerce are the following:
· Document automation in supply chain and logistics
· Domestic and international payment systems
· Enterprise content management
· Group buying
· Automated online assistants
· Instant messaging
· Newsgroups
· Online shopping and order tracking
· Online banking
· Online office suites
· Shopping cart software
· Teleconferencing
· Electronic tickets
Beginning & future of eCommerce
eCommerce basically began (although debated) in 1994 when Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com out of his own garage. Well known eCommerce stores include sites like eBay, Dell, Walmart and many more. Since 1994, businesses of all shapes and sizes have began launching or expanding their Online presence. At any given time, there are approximately 8 million consumers worldwide that actively shop and buy through Web based stores or retailers (nearly one tenth of our world population). Online studies have claimed that online retail revenues will surpass the quarter-trillion-dollar mark by 2011.
· Typical business web sites do not usually have the same features as eCommerce enabled web stores do. In order to effectively distribute, market and sell goods or services online you will need certain features only found on eCommerce sites. Features may include a shopping cart, ability to process credit cards, online statistics tracking and other non-computer technologies such as product warehousing and shipping transportation.
Kindly Join us on Facebook by clicking here.You can also follow us on twitter by clicking here and here. Alternatively, you can follow me on Google plus by clicking here. Finally kindly subscribe to our email list for more of this kind of information.
