intro to ecommerce essays

intro to ecommerce essays In the broadest sense, electronic commerce (e-commerce), is the buying and selling of products and services over the Internet. It has included the handling of purchase transactions and funds transfers over computer networks. According to the Forrester Research Study "Sizing Intercompany Commerce," total U.S business-to-business Internet trade in 1998 is $7.7 billion, compared to a total global e-commerce of $21.8 billion, dramatically increasing from $2.5 billion in 1997. By the year 2002, according to the report, there will be $328 billion worth of e-commerce. Electronic commerce is the ability to perform transactions involving the exchange or use of goods or services between two or more parties using electronic tools and techniques Some main technologies have made e-commerce viable - WWW, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and E-mail. EDI is the inter-organisational, computer-to-computer exchange of business documentation in a standard, machine-processable format. EFT was designed to optimise electronic payments with electronically provided remittance information. Electronic commerce provides the capability of buying and selling products and information via telephone lines, computer networks, and other electronic means. The Internet, the largest network of computer networks, is the medium usually favoured for electronic commerce because it allows an organisation to cut service costs while increasing the speed of service delivery. Electronic commerce is considered a primary means by which organisations may expand rapidly into high growth emerging markets of the world. This is possible because, firstly as trans-national companies become skilled in their use of the Internet, they will be able to pursue global electronic commerce more efficiently, saving important advertising, communication, and administrative costs. Secondly, the Internet can increase responsiveness by notifying individual cu...