Ecommerce

Electronic commerce, or more commonly known as ecommerce, refers to the practise of buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over computer networks, and in recent times, even via mobile phones. This includes businesses selling and communicating with other businesses through electronic networks, in addition to the main and popular practice of direct trade between an individual and a business.

Ecommerce allows trade to cut through the boundaries of time and geography by bringing the seller and customer in virtual contact with each other in real time, irrespective of their location in the world. From a seller's point of view, ecommerce provides him with a worldwide audience at a relatively insignificant cost. For a buyer, it provides the convenience of buying almost anything he wants with just a few clicks of the mouse, and hence saving him precious time and energy that he would require if had to do the same by traditional "over the counter" methods. Due to these factors, ecommerce has seen a tremendous growth over the last ten years or so, and in some cases has even overtaken earning from more traditional sales methods.

The aim of this report is to highlight the impact that new technologies like the internet have had, and continue to have in the exponential growth of ecommerce. It will discuss the impact that ecommerce has on the global retail economy, and will elaborate on the main factors that are leading more and more companies to adopt this strategy. Having laid this foundation, the report then looks at the more practical aspects of how a company may go about implementing an e-commerce strategy for their business with a brief discussion of some of the many resources that are easily available nowadays to do so. It will also attempt to conduct a concise analysis of the potential risks and benefits involved, to both the business implementing the strategy and the customers, in adopting the ecommerce system. This will include a case study of three highly successful and well-known companies that have implemented ecommerce for their business, and have benefited immensely from it, to complement the previous discussion. Finally, this report looks at the future of ecommerce and some of the areas where the use of computer networks can be exploited to benefit society and the economy in general, which so far still remain a highly untapped potential for growth.