Lecture One - Electronic Ecommerce

The foundations of Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) came about in 2 waves. The first wave was between the mid-1990s - 2000 which saw rapid growth, followed by a Doc-Com boom and then later a bust. The second wave meant businesses saw signs of new life within e-commerce which allowed for sales growth and profits.

Electronic Commerce is shopping on the web. Which means businesses trade with other businesses via electronic systems. A broader term for this would be electronic business.

Dot-Com - The business purely operates online.

B2C and B2B - Self explanatory... A business operating online directed towards the consumer, business 2 business is the trading between two businesses via electronic commerce.

C2C and B2G - Consumer 2 Consumer and Business 2 Government.

Elements of Electronic Commerce

Elements of Electronic Commerce

Business-to-Business electronic commerce has a much larger fields in terms of the number of transactions and business processes. 

The internat changed the way people buy, sell and conduct business. It forced businesses to adopt new tools to meet the demands of consumers and businesses.

EFT and Wire Transfers increased in popularity. It is not getting to the stage consumers and business prefer to use card rather than pay in cash - Checks are virtually non-existant.

Electronic Data Interchange - Is business-to-business readable information that is often used by trading partners.

Trading Partners - EDI pioneers (General Electric, Sears, Wal-Mart) Improved purchasing processes and supplier relationships. 

There are several problems with EDI - It is costly to setup and requires a large computer system and direct network connections. 

These direct network connections are often setup as a Value-added network (VAN) which is an independent firm offering EDI connection and transaction forwarding services, ensuring data is transmitted securely. Charged as a fixed monthly fee plus per transaction charge.  (Eway is an example of this)