History and evolution of e-commerce

E-commerce
E-commerce is all about buying and selling goods and services online by businesses and consumers, but it is also used to transfer and share information within organizations through Intranets to improve decision-making and abolish duplication of effort. It included three categories:
B2B - Business to Business (Intel)
B2C – Business to Consumer ( Priceline )
C2C – Consumer to Consumer ( E-bay )

History of E-commerce
E-commerce was founded late in the 1970’s. It existed when all the data transfer related to commerce done electronically. E-commerce represents a revolution for the online industry. E-commerce has revolutionized further and has been converted into eBusiness with the optimum usage of resources such as the Internet. E-business is now defined as the fastest growing industry in this modern era of computers and finance.

Evolution of E-commerce

• The Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was developed in 1960’s for the companies to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. In 1984, EDI was standardized through ASC X12 to guarantee that the companies to carry out their dealings related to international trade, import or export and global sourcing in a much more reliable manner.
• Mosaic web-browser, which was the first ‘point and click’ browser, was made available in 1992. The browser was adapted into a downloadable browser, Netscape to enable easier assess to electronic commerce. The Netscape also provides the users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer. So, the first record of a company letting people to buy things from the computer is presented in 1992.
• In 1995, the two biggest names in e-commerce are launched, Amazon.com and eBay.com. These two companies have certainly contributed in their own ways to international trade, import or export and global sourcing.
• In 1998, the people can access the Internet with a persistent connection due to the development of DSL. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.
• The merger between AOL and Time Warner was a major push for electronic commerce to bring together a major online company with a traditional company. The development of electronic commerce is required for further security improvement as some major players of e-commerce were being hacked.
• Today the largest electronic commerce is Business-to-Business (B2B) which means businesses sell their goods to other businesses. In 2001, this form of e-commerce had around $700 billion in transaction.
  

How e-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support

Is me again, thanks for viewing my blog. In this blog entry, I am going to share with you guys some information about e-commerce. As public knowledge, e-commerce has a lot of advantages to business and employment nowadays. Any organization which can master their e-commerce and fully utilize the function of it will automatically create a competitive advantage over its competitor.

Many people know that e-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitate customer support. However, did you guys know that how is it function in order to achieve those advantages?

By using e-commerce, an organization may reduce its cycle time to a very short period. How does it work? In traditional transaction, an organization may need to take time in travelling from a place to others in order to purchase or make an order. Besides travelling time, purchasing process also takes a lot of time to be completed. The user of e-commerce is more convenient than traditional trading; they can make an order in any time and any way. The ordering and purchasing process will automatically generated by the system in a few seconds. Thus, this will reduce the cycle time of an organization.

When an organization adopts e-commerce, their employees will become more empowered. To handle a rapid growth transaction from time to time and worldwide, traditional way to conduct such transaction is a bit difficult to do it well. The employees in such organization which adopt the e-commerce, will be given some power to manage those transactions without the supervised of high level manager. In other word, the empowerment of employees has been improved by this way.

A customer support is a very important function of an organization. With e-commerce, customer support may be facilitated through online. Customer can access to an organization to check what is the variable solution or alternative in making order or when facing any problem. By using the FAQ provided by the customer support, organization personnel will not receive the same problem facing by customer frequently. Customer will solve their problem through the alternative provided. So, it will result in facilitating customer support.

Lastly, I need to clarify that the above essay is just my personal opinion. I did not refer to any website or book. Anything which is incorrect, please give me some comment. Thanks!

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

Webvan was an online grocery business that went bankrupt in 2001. It delivered products to customer's homes within a 30-minute window of their choosing. At its peak it offered service in ten diffirent cities in the U.S. Experts hailed that Webvan was one of the greatest dotcom disasters in history.

While Webvan was popular, the money spent on infrastructure far exceeded sales growth, and the company eventually ran out of money. As part of its shutdown process, all non perishable food was donated to local food banks. Webvan's legacy consist thousands of coloured platic shipping bins for groceries that are still siting in customer's basements and closets.

The online grocery market sector has seen many other failures, including Publix Direct. However there have been a few successes. Analysts blamed the failure of Webvan is caused by a serious error of judgment on the fact that none of Webvan's senior executives had any management experience in supermarket industry. Another factor that contributes the disaster is the Webvan policy of trying to embrace a total customer satisfaction model involving 30 minute window delivery without considering that many working customers would like their groceries delivered at home at night.

Example of e- commerce success

E-commerce is a type of business model or segment of a larger business model, that enables a firm or individual to conduct business over an electronic network, typically the internet We know that eBay is one of the example successful in e-commerce area. eBay is the world online marketplace, a website where anyone can be a buyer or a seller with just a few clicks away. eBay started by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, it include items like antiques,art,book,cars,coin or paper money,CDs,clothing,and so on. What the reason make the eBay success? eBay is offering their users an opportunity to come together in one Internet site and be able to buy and trade a wide range of items, including fine collectibles. It allows people to pursue their interests and their passions in the areas of their hobbies and their collectibles. Besides that ,it also become a very practical place to buy and sell collectibles or commodities. Another factor is that people really enjoy the experience of the shopping bazaar. They enjoy the hunt. They enjoy looking around for merchandise. The other component, they really enjoy the competition of the bidding process. Everybody likes to get a bargain, and everybody in some way, shape, or form, likes to haggle a little bit over the price. The last point, eBay can reach globally to hundred thousand of people enabling them to make a business of their own. eBay who gains access to a global market place can reach to more potential buyers then locally and with profits keep pouring in, eBay’s continuous success will definitely not cease yet.All factors let the eBay continuously grow and achieve successful.