Electronics commerce (E-Commerce)

Electronic Commerce, commonly known as (electronic marketing) 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 volume of trade conducted electronically has grown excessively with widespread Internet usage. 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 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.

A huge percentage of electronic commerce is conducted completely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content via internet, but most electronic trade involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Almost all main retailers have electronic commerce appearance on the internet.

E commerce which is conducted between businesses is considered to as business-to-business or B 2 B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). Electronic trade which is done between businesses and end user, is considered as business-to-consumer or B 2 C. This is the type of electronic commerce conducted by companies such as Amazon.com.

Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of Electronic-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions


Early development

The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. initially, electronic commerce meant the assistance of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like order for purchase or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.

Online shopping, an important component of electronic commerce, was invented by Michael Aldrich in the UK in 1979. The world's first recorded B2B was Thomson Holidays in 1981 The first recorded B2C was Gateshead SIS/Tesco in 1984 The world's first recorded online shopper was Mrs Jane Snowball of Gateshead, England During the 1980s, online shopping was also used extensively in the UK by auto manufacturers such as Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan. All these organizations and others used the Aldrich systems. The systems used the switched public telephone network in dial-up and leased line modes. There was no broadband capability.

From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

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

In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and transformed an academic telecommunication network into a worldwide everyman everyday communication system called internet /www. Commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited until 1991 . Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994 when the first internet online shopping started, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet. By the end of 2000, many European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "ecommerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.