Wednesday, March 31, 2010

What’s E-commerce(Electronic Commerce):

What’s E-commerce(Electronic Commerce):

Electronic Commerce or Electronic Marketing is the process of conducting the business transactions through different forms of electronic media like tele-communications, internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce involves the buying and selling of different kinds of products and services through various forms of electronic media like internet and other computer networks.
The sum of trade conducted under the banner of electronic commerce has grown tremendously during the last few years due to the popularity of internet and other electronic media. The use 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), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.
Modern E-Commerce uses the internet as the primary medium for conducting the business besides other forms of electronic medium. Most of the trade is carried on World Wide Web due to its large usage, besides it also involves the transportation of the physical goods from one place to another viashipping modes.
On one hand, electronic commerce conducted between two or more businesses is called Business-to-business or B2B. B2B is open to all interested parties like commodity exchange; or limited to specific pre-qualified participants like private electronic market.
On the other hand, electronic commerce that’s conducted between businesses and consumers is business-to-consumer or B2C. B2C is carried out between the sellers of various products and services in collaboration with its buyers. One of the best examples for this mode of electronic commerce is
www.amazon.com
It supplies its products and services to various customers across the globe through the World Wide Web as a platform of transportation.
Electronic commerce considered to be the sales aspect of E-business; besides, the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.
The concept of electronic commerce emerged in mid 70s and drastically changed its connotation over a period of time. During its beginning stages, electronic commerce was limited to a few means of the electronic media like electronic data interchange (EDI) and electronic funds transfer (EFT). . Both of them were introduced during the late 1970s, allowing the businesses to transfer the commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. Various forms of electronic commerce like credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking started emerging in 1980s. Consequently, the growth and acceptance of these forms further increased the role and scope of electronic commerce.
Another form of electronic commerce is airline reservation system, represented bby Saber in the USA and Travicum in the UK. In addition to this, online shopping which is an important component of electronic commerce, was founded by Michael Aldrich in the UK in 1979. Mrs Jane Snowball of Gateshead, England was the first world’s first recorded online shopper. Since then, online shopping was extensively used in the UK by various auto manifacturers like Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. All the main companies and organisations used Aldrich systems. These systems depended on the switched public telephone network in dial-up and leased line modes, since there was no broadband connectivity during those days.
From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
The invention of WWW (World Wide Web) in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee marked a revolution in the area of telecommunications. This invention transformed the academic telecommunications in to global, everyman every day communication system on the name of internet (WWW).


List of developments in E-commerce:
1979: Online shopping was invented in the UK by Michael Aldrich.
1982: Minitel was introduced nationwide in France by France Telecom and used for online ordering.
1987: Swreg begins to provide software and shareware authors means to sell their products online through an electronic Merchant account.
1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.
1992: J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn publish Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change the Way We Shop and What We Buy. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312063598.
1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opens. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials also become commercially available, as do cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 is introduced in late 1994 SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio start broadcasting. Dell and Cisco begin to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
1999: Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to eCompanies, which was purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster launches. ATG Stores launches to sell decorative items for the home online.
2000: The dot-com bust.
2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion [6]. Niche retail companies CSN Stores and NetShops are founded with the concept of selling products through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.
2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million[7].
2008: US eCommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2007[8].
Advantages and forms of E-commerce:
Contemporary electronic commerce facilitates the customers to conduct all their transactions from ordering for various goods and services like books, movies and all types of digital content that can be consumed online. It allows the customers to purchase everything from books or groceries and other expensive items like real estate online, just at a few computer strokes.
Another advantage of electronic commerce is online bill payment:
Most of the modern electronic commerce is carried out on the World Wide Web. It facilitates the user to make all their payments directly online. The user can pay his/her phone/power bill, and so on directly online with out visiting the providers and their centers for payments.
Inspite of this, online or internet banking is another form of electronic commerce. Many banks and other financial institutions carry out most of their transactions online through WWW of internet. It also facilitates an individual to make online payments, purchase stockes, transferr money from one account to another across the globe.
Large enterprises and corporations use the internet to exchange their financial data to facilitate their domestic and international trade. Data integraty and security and the most challenging issues of electronic commerce of today.
Conclusion:
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