History and Evolution of E-Commerce

History

In the beginning, the Internet was characterized by slow dial-up connections and online billboards.

During that time, E-Commerce(EC) refer to the process of execution of commercial transaction electronically with the help of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions.

aa

a

1970’s ~ EDI and EFT were formulated to support commercial electronic transaction.

1979 ~ Online shopping was invented in the UK by Michael Aldrich. Online Shopping was used extensively particularly by auto manufacturers such as Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan.

1990 ~ Tim Berners-Lee developed World Wide Web at CERN that started the 1st Internet Transaction.

EC would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

1991 ~ EC became possible in when the Internet was opened to commercial use.

Since that date, thousands of businesses have taken up residence at web sites.

1993 ~ Marc Andreessen developed Mosaic, this is the 1st graphic web browser launched to interchange text and graphic. Microsoft came up with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

1994 ~ Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla.

Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page.

1995 ~ Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com.The 1st 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 ~ DSL was launched into the market that provided much faster access and persistent connection to the internet.

2000 ~ European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web (www).

Dot-com bust led to unfortunate results and many of ecommerce companies disappeared, the “brick and mortar” retailers recognized the advantages of electronic commerce and began to add such capabilities to their web sites.

2003 ~ Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.

2008~ US EC and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2007.

a

a

Evolution

Indeed, EC has evolved from online billboards to a fully functional, personalized shopping experience over the past decade.

Today it includes of a very extensive range of activities and methods, from e-banking to Offshore manufacturing to e-logistics.

Netscape came on the scene in 1994 with its point-and-click Web browser that opened the door to the billion-dollar revenues e-tailers enjoy today.

Two of the first online purveyors were eBay and Amazon.com

a

The swift growth of ecommerce is due to business ventures implementing the effective policies of ecommerce that embraces the following four crucial principles:

Security of Logical Assets

Tough copyright, exclusive rights and other forms of logical asset security are important solutions to reviving the information economy.

Online Reliability, Safety and Confidentiality

Advancement in ecommerce is basically due to Customers certainty in the protection, safety measures and confidentiality of personal and financial information.

Safeguarding data and links on the Internet is very important for the steady success of Internet and economy of information. Internets potential will be recognised only in free, open markets.

Investing in an e-commerce technology infrastructure

Maintenance of the essential physical communications to deliver digital matter (primarily through telecommunications deregulation and government efforts to reduce the digital divide) is very important to encourage technological growth.

a

a

As a conclusion, the first business deal carried out on telephone or via a fax is mainly considered as first ecommerce transaction. EC spread to a significant group globally within a span of 4 years from 1996 to 2000. EC technology will continues to progress to change personal communication and global trading at an astonishing speed.

a

a

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/40249.html

http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html

Benefits of E-Commerce

Reduce Cycle Time

Cycle time is the amount of time between a customer placing an order and receiving the goods.

EC can reduce cycle time by eliminating steps in business processes.

The steps may be redundant or can be replaced with more efficient technology solutions.

The elimination of the steps speeds the overall process and reduces cycle time.

For example, customers are able to view products and its description through electronic catalogue rather than walk in to physical to search for their goods.

Furthermore, physical store will not be available in 24/7 but EC will provide this services.

In addition, delivery will be made every day, so customer can get their products 1 or 2days after placing order.

Indeed, EC has skipped the middle man and intermediaries which may slow down in ordering and delivering.

a

a

a

a

Improve Employee Empowerment

EC can provide employee empowerment by providing employees with greater and easier access to information provided by the employer. Employers are responsible in controlling their employee. Hence they have to set an objective or goals to them. EC which is supported by IT, always ease employer in communicate with employees. Employees can work from anywhere at any time whenever they like. Because through accessing the internet they can do everything online. Any notice or information can directly and easily get from both party especially urgent problems.

a

Facilitate Customer Support

EC facilitates customer support by providing a wide range of technological solutions and communication opportunities. There is a self-service customer portal that gives customers a way to post service issues, place new orders, or view their order histories. This type of communication portal also provide 24/7 business around the world. Additionally, EC allow customers to report a problem or request information with a simple e-mail, simplifying case creation and expediting customer requests. Hence, customers do not need to wait for order reply by mail or waste money to make a call for their queries and order.

a

a

In other words, EC is easy to use and it also helps in employer and employee communication. This may helps to increase organisation's benefits by reducing costs. If all those 3 benefits (above) are fullfilled, i believe that there would be a considerable figure of income for the organisation. a

a

http://www.netsuite.com/portal/industries/ecommerce/support/customer_support.shtml http://www.remarkable.co.nz/ebusiness/ebusiness_cost_benefit.htm

An Example of E-Commerce Failure and its Causes

As we know there are lots of successful virtual e-commerce companies such as Google, eBay, yahoo, amazon and so on. Yet there are still a number of e-commerce companies fail to maintain revenue through e-commerce business.

a

Boo.com is one of the top 10 dot-com flops. Boo.com was a United Kingdom internet company founded by ernst Malmsten, kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin, intention to sell branded fashion apparel over the internet. However, it spend $160 million of venture capital before its liquidation and was placed into receivership on 18 MAY 2000 .

a

The design of the company's Web site was critical to its success. First of all, the site relied deeply on java script and flash technology to display pseudo-3D views of wares as well as Miss Boo, a sales-assistant-style Avatar. The site also faced a barrage of criticisms for being painfully slow and only accessible to on-line shoppers with 56 kilobytes per second modems and above. So On-line shoppers needed fairly high-powered computers and fast modems to access Boo.com. There is limited space available to display the product information to customer due to the complicated design that required to be displayed in a fixed size windows.

a

Boo.com spent £125 million , to market itself as a global company but then had to deal with different languages, pricing, and tax structures in all the countries it served. However, the sale do not up to their expectation because there were a high numbers of returned products. Costs increase due to the poor management and lack of communication between departments. The company also recruited a large number of staff with lack of direction and executive decision, this will increase the pay-roll cost. As a result the company failed to attract the revenue it needed to survive.

a

Nevertheless, in May 2007 Web Reservations International turned boo.com into a travel site with reviews and listings. WRI claims to be one of the world’s most successful e-businesses . "boo.com in new travel guise

a

The reasons why businesses fail is that the basic idea was wrong, Start-up capital was inadequate, there was wasteful use of capital, inability to deal with a variety of people - suppliers, customers, employees, poor organizational management, lack of managerial ability and lack of market specific experience. If a company can cope with all those circumstances , it will be a successful e-commerce companies.

a

a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com

An example of an eCommerce Success and its Causes

Background of eBay

a

EBay was founded in Pierre Omidyar's San Jose living room back in September 1995. It was started to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals.

a

a

a

EBay has built an online person-to-person trading community on the Internet and using the World Wide Web. Buyers and sellers are brought together in a manner where sellers are permitted to list items for sale moreover buyers to bid on items of interest and all eBay users to browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The items are arranged by topics and each type of auction has been categorized.

a

E-Commerce Successful

EBay has both streamlined and globalized traditional person-to-person trading, which has traditionally been conducted through such forms as garage sales, collectibles shows, flea markets and more, with their web interface.

a

This facilitates easy search for buyers and enables the sellers to immediately list an item for sale within minutes of registering.

a

EBay notifies the buyer and seller via e-mail at the end of the auction if a bid exceeds the seller's minimum price, and the seller and buyer finish the transaction independently of eBay. The binding contract of the auction is between the winning bidder and the seller only.

a

Cause E-Commerce Successful

EBay is the world’s largest online marketplace therefore eBay provides customers with one of the world’s most dynamic web sites. Nevertheless eBay continually looks to improve customer experiences and eBay has been searching ways to improve e-commerce services. Recently eBay produce new eBay Desktop application built on Adobe AIR for expanding their services to include a powerful, easy-to-use desktop application that provides customers with next-generation online shopping experiences.

a

EBay has had isolated campaigns through radio and print, and also done some tradeoffs and some banner ads on other sites. EBay is such a unique community that has been able to build our membership through the word-of-mouth of their users and also attract new members due to the amount of media attention that has come to the site in the past of years.

a

a

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/2127.html

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfmevent=casestudydetail&casestudyid=383833