E-commerce

13 Pages 3226 Words

Table of Contents








I. E-Commerce: An Introduction

II. History of E-Commerce

III. Economic Impact

IV. Advantages of E-Commerce

V. Disadvantages of E-Commerce


VI. The Future of E-Commerce


VII. The Conclusion






















Imagine being able to shop at 30 different stores, track a package, or bid on an antique that you may have always wanted, and all before lunch. Since the advent of the computer, business has changed and evolved exponentially over the years. From the first business application VisiCalc®, which, as Dan Bricklin said, “…took 20 hours of work per week for some people and turned it out in 15 minutes and let them become much more creative."(Spreadsheet), companies today have looked to the Internet as a new way to sell goods and services and help customers. Webster's Dictionary® defines the term commerce as “the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place” (Webster’s). E-commerce in a similar way to way “ refers to all forms of business activities conducted across the internet. This can include E-tailing, B2B, intranets and extranets, online advertising (eg. advertising banners), and simply online presences of any form that are used for some type of communication...” There are very few successful companies that do not use computers in their everyday business activities, which also means there are few companies that do not use E-commerce. To emphasize the point that the effect of the Internet is so widespread in today’s business communities, one online article stated that more than 100,000 companies have Internet addresses, and 20,000 companies have Web-sites on the Internet, and this fact was noted in February 1999 (DataQuest, 1999). These numbers have more than tripled since 1995, and the trend shows no signs of slowing. But, what exactly is E-commerce? To most casual Inter...