eCommerce, Ecommerce, e-commerce; however you spell it,
term is now firmly lodged in our language. So just what is it?At it's most simplistic level; eCommerce is simply buying and selling of goods, services or information via World Wide Web, email or other pathways on Internet. It is here to stay and will play a bigger role in our lives over years ahead. Ecommerce and Ebusiness are interchangeable terms. eCommerce can be broken down into following sections:
- eTailing. These are mainly "virtual" storefronts which act as a catalogue of products of merchants and usually include a "shopping cart" system to enable consumers to purchase online with use of credit cards. Today's Internet climate dictates that if you can't buy what you see online while you are online; you will probably lose sale. The great advantage of etailing is international coverage at minimum cost and ability to trade 24 hours a day with minimum staffing levels. The benefits to consumers are shopping from home and a wide range of choice. This range of choice can sometimes be a downfall as it confuses some consumers who in frustration may give up on buying product at all!
- EDI (Electronic Data exchange). This is business to business (b2b) flow of information between companies or within a company itself. The 90's saw concept information equalling power. Whatever creates power also generates money and therefore creates new enterprises to supply this information. EDI is being replaced with XML. He with most relevant data on his hard drive wins!
- Email and faxing. Direct marketing through email. Unfortunately, it also creates equivalent of what we find in our physical mailboxes every day; junk mail - electronic junk mail is known as spam. Terrabytes of spam is circulating around Internet at any given time, which slows down our global network. While this is one of negative aspects of eCommerce, direct marketing ploys, if carried out properly are a very successful and acceptable way of generating income for a business
- Security services. The broad exposure of (and sometimes hyped) dangers of credit card and direct debit transactions via Internet has rocketed growth of many companies who provide security services to protect consumer & business transactions. This can include authorisation/encryption technologies and creating secure areas on web sites. This will be a growth area for as long as eCommerce is with us because you can guarantee that as soon as a new "unhackable" technology is introduced - someone has hacked it. Some hackers view themselves as rebels, antiestablishment and "socialists"; but in reality they actually fuel security services market and provide huge dividends for shareholders in successful security services firms. Good one guys... you won't change world for better by sniffing around bank accounts!
