Introduction
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-Comm., refers to
- All the activities of purchase and sales of goods or services. Marketing, sales, payment, fulfillment, customer service
- Electronic commerce is doing commerce with the use of computers, networks and commerce-enabled software (more than just online shopping)
Brief History
- 1970s: Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
Used by the banking industry to exchange account information over secured networks
- Late 1970s and early 1980s: Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for e-commerce within companies
Used by businesses to transmit data from one business to another
- 1990s: the World Wide Web on the Internet provides easy-to-use technology for information publishing and dissemination
• Cheaper to do business (economies of scale)
• Enable diverse business activities (economies of scope)
Benefits of Ecommerce
The primary benefits of ecommerce revolve around the fact that it eliminates limitations of time and geographical distance. In the process, ecommerce usually streamlines operations and lowers costs
E-commerce applications
- Supply chain management
- Video on demand
- Remote banking
- Procurement and purchasing
- Online marketing and advertisement
- Home shopping
- Auctions
WEB MODELS
- Pure-web play model where E-commerce plays only the role of an intermediary between server and buyers.
- E-commerce portal combined with their own delivery system, which can be considered a counterpart to the standard store-chains except that points of sale exist only on the Web.
- Click-an-mortar business model, where the e-commerce presence is developed as an extension to the physical store (-chain) presence.
Advantages of Electronic Commerce
- Increased sales
– Reach narrow market segments in geographically dispersed locations
– Create virtual communities
- Decreased costs
– Handling of sales inquiries
– Providing price quotes
– Determining product availability
- Being in the space
Disadvantages of Electronic Commerce
- Loss of ability to inspect products from remote locations
- Rapid developing pace of underlying technologies
- Difficult to calculate return on investment
- Cultural and legal impediments
