Electronic Commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown dramatically since the spread of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well. E commerce is a new technology.

E-commerce or electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business.

History

Early development

The meaning of the term "electronic commerce" has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, "electronic commerce" meant the facilitation of 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 'electronic' or 'e' in e-commerce indicates the technology used, while 'commerce' refers to traditional business models. Accordingly, e-commerce is the complete set of processes that support commercial business activities on an electronic network. In the 1970s and 1980s, this also involved information analysis. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of e-commerce. From the 1990s onwards, e-commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

Perhaps the earliest example of many-to-many electronic commerce in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet online system introduced in 1991.

The emergence of e-commerce significantly lowered barriers to entry in the selling of many types of goods; accordingly many small home-based proprietors are able to use the internet to sell goods. Often, small sellers use online auction sites such as eBay, or sell via large corporate websites like Amazon.com, in order to take advantage of the exposure and setup convenience of such sites.

$259 billion of online sales including travel are expected in 2007 in USA, a 18 percent increase from the previous year, as forecasted by the "State of Retailing Online 2007" report from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Shop.org.

Success factors

In many cases, an e-commerce company survives not only based on its product, but by having a competent management team, good post-sales services, well-organized business structure, network infrastructure and a secured, well-designed website. Important aspects of success include technical and organizational as well as customer-oriented aspects.

Customer experience

A successful e-commerce organization must provide an enjoyable and rewarding experience to its customers. Many factors go into making this possible. Such factors include:

1. Providing value to customers.

2. Providing service and performance..

3. Providing an incentive for customers to buy and to return.

4. Providing personal attention.

5. Providing a sense of community.

6. Owning the customer's total experience.

7. Letting customers help themselves.

8. Helping customers do their job of consuming

Some Problems

The customer cannot see the actual product he/she is buying.

Some companies charge a restocking fee for returned products.

The selling company needs to have a good customer support team.

1-Buying through internet means like having a world as one market in front of your screen. One of the options that e-commerce was used for since its establishment, was to sell used products. As said earlier, Boston Computer Exchange.

Internet purchases give a wide range of varieties for replacement buys. May people around the world are selling their home products or used stuffs through many different e-commerce/auction sites such as e-bay.com, ioffer.com. Most of the times the quality of these used product can be compared to its original condition but with much lower price. Another benefit of ordering online is deducting the dealers’ fees. You are directly