E-Commerce :: Electronic Commerce

E-commerce is defined as commerce that is transacted electronically, as over the internet. Most people think of E-commerce as buying things on the web. In reality, it is much more than that. It does include purchases from such places as Amazon or Borders for you books, to an array of sporting goods stores for your outdoor activities. It also includes services, such as banking. There is business to consumer (B2C) transactions that most of us use today. Another form is consumer to consumer (C2C), which included the popular auction sites. There is also business to business (B2B) commerce done on the internet. They are all forms of E-commerce

In 1968 E-commerce got its start through an electronic data interface which allowed companies the ability to complete transactions with each other. It wasn't until 1984 that a standard called ASC X12 was introduced to make sure both companies had the same transaction capabilities to allow them to interact reliably and quickly.

In 1992, Netscape introduced an internet browser that allowed for point and click capabilities. This was the beginning of the internet shopping craze. This was the first time that ordinary people could get on the internet and navigate fairly easily. Up until this point, it was mainly reserved for computer programmers.

In 1995, the two most recognizable E-commerce companies today were introduced. Both Amazon.com and eBay.com came onto the scene. They have survived the tremendous swings in the business and are going strong and getting larger by the day. I am able to buy books and music from Amazon. Most of the books are used for the classes. On eBay, I am able to buy and sell goods. I can find many products that I wouldn't be able to find locally and purchase, have them shipped, and pay for them through a third party, all without ever leaving my home. I am also able to sell goods that I no longer need or cannot use. I often will sell tickets on eBay to people from all over the Northeast and sometimes throughout the U.S. There is also Priceline.com, the reverse auction site for travelers. Instead of the consumer bidding on a trip, the consumer enters the price they want to pay and companies can accept the offer in exchange for the accommodations the customer is looking for.

With the explosion of popularity of the internet, many internet companies were major players in the corporate world in a very short time. America Online (AOL) was the first to merge with a long standing company. The merger of AOL and Time Warner allowed the companies to deliver E-commerce to an enormous population of consumers. At the time of the merger, AOL had 24 million customers. This allowed AOL to sell Time Warner products electronically through their service directly to the millions of customers they already had. It was a win-win for both companies AOL had the platform, and Time Warner had the product.

As the popularity of the internet had grown, so had the chances of being attacked by hackers. Many customers lost faith in the E-commerce community. This forced the retailers to introduce means of better protection for them and especially their customers in they wanted to continue in the business.

Demographics have changed over the years of E-commerce. In the Mid-90's it was primarily white males in their 30's. Today, it is more balanced with females and teens joining the community. Since the majority of world wide shoppers are from the U.S., the target audience for E-commerce is English speakers with internet access and a credit card.

We have begun getting an e-business started. The first thing we did was look for companies to host a site and buy a domain name. After looking at several and the ease of use that each offered, we chose GoDaddy.com. The cost was fairly inexpensive and we were able to register the business name as the domain name. Since we are importing goods from South America, the business name is in Spanish. Thus, we also registered the English translation and will have it direct them to the homepage of the Spanish named site. By working with the provider, we are also able to have an email address under the business name. This helps keep personal email separate from business email.

As you design your homepage, you should think about how you want you product or image to appear. Your homepage is your electronic storefront. If consumers don't like what they see or there isn't anything intriguing, they will not stay long enough to find something to purchase. Although we haven't decided on the layout of the site, we have decided to have access for customers to pay by secure http connection that the provider will build into the site for us. We will also be offering the Person to Person payment service, PayPal. The good thing about PayPal is that we won't have the need for additional protection of customer information such as credit card numbers, since that information will all be stored on PayPal's servers. This is going to be a learning experience for us and it will not be a high volume business to start with. Initially there won't be a lot of automation built into the site. We will be doing most of the entry and remove of product from the site. It also may end up being just and information page for customers to see what we offer and call or email for availability. Since each piece of product will be "one off" we won't be able to show everything without having an enormous site. Most likely, we will offer basic images and encourage contact with us to allow us to send other images of similar designs.

We are also using the site as a means to test whether there is a market for the products that we will be importing. The reason for trying the site first is that we won't have a large amount of overhead that a traditional brick and mortar retail location carries. If the site is successful, we may start a small traditional retail location. One of the selling points of the products will be that they are being purchased directly from the artisans and will be considering free trade.

Moving away from our personal business, I wanted to focus on wireless entertainment. More and more cell phone services are offering music, and now video of live events directly to your phone. Disney is offering cell service through two of the brands, Mobile ESPN and Disney Mobile. They have partnered with Sprint to use their nationwide network. Disney has also partnered with Apple to be the first multimedia company to distribute content for the video iPod. E-commerce isn't just for the wired internet and PC anymore.