Nowadays, one of the most popular activities that Internet users tend to do on the Web is shopping; this is especially seen in developed countries, as well as developing country. Internet users can shop anytime, anywhere, just with one computer, in the company of network coverage. Anyone can build their pages on the Web to display their specific products and services. This state is known as electronic commerce, which is commonly known as e-commerce.
What is e-commerce? It consists of the buying and selling of specific products and services over the Internet and other computer networks. The history of e-commerce dates back to the creation of the old concept of ‘sell and buy’, with the presence of computer, electricity, cable, modem and the Internet. In 1991, e-commerce was generally become possible when the Internet was released to commercial use.
Originally, e-commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically with the assisting of the leading technologies, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which were introduced in the late 1970s. These technologies gave a chance for the Internet users to do electronic transactions and to exchange business information. Besides, these technologies allowed sellers and buyers to send commercial documents such as purchase order or invoices electronically. However, EDI has not gained reasonable acceptance because the high cost of EDI prohibited small businesses and medium-sized companies from participating in the electronic.
In 1980s, the development and acceptance of automated teller machine (ATM) and credit cards were also types of e-commerce. Enterprise resource planning system (ERP), data warehousing and data mining were included in the treatment of e-commerce from 1990s onwards. In 1994, the Internet was generally becoming popular among the general public. In 2000, the meaning of e-commerce was changed. An enormous amount of business corporations in the Western Europe and the United States represented their services in the World Wide Web. E-commerce now was being defined as the process buying and selling over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services.
Many of the e-commerce companies had been vanished due to the collapsing of dot-com in 2000. However, the online retailers had began to recognize the advantages of e-commerce and they started add such capabilities onto their websites. By the end of 2001, the largest form of e-commerce, Business-to-Business (B2B) model had been recognized and it brought a huge gain to the online retailers.
E-commerce is becoming an integral part in our daily lives at the present and in the near future. It has brought a great deal of advantages to the Internet consumers and retailers by providing a convenient way for people in the process of buying and selling. Moreover, e-commerce is also contributes to the boosting up and growth of the economics of a country by generating more revenues and profits to the country. E-commerce should be used in good way so that it will not be mistakenly used in unhealthy sector.
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