The Introduction To The Electronic Commerce

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

E-commerce, which is an abbreviation of electronic commerce, can simply be defined as the buying and selling of products or services by businesses and consumers via the Internet and the World Wide Web (www). Even though the terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably, they are actually two very different things. In fact, the Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks which links businesses, educational institutions, government agencies as well as individuals together while the World Wide Web is one of the Internet’s most popular services and is the most important and most effective way of linking the world, providing access to over two billion Web pages, which has a very large collection of documents, pictures, sounds and video.

When e-commerce was first introduced, it has actually grown rapidly in the United States and has brought enormous changes in business firms, markets, as well as consumer behavior. Economies and businesses around the globe, in Europe, Asia and Latin America, are similarly affected. In the twenty first century, e-commerce has actually played an essential part in our daily lives as it has changed our lifestyles entirely, whereby it is something we participate in every day. With the introduction of computers, Internet and the e-commerce, we do not have to spend our time and money on shopping in the local supermarket as we can buy our daily needs and make our payments through online billing.

Basically, there are five major types of e-commerce, which are the Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Business-to-Business (B2B), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and also Mobile commerce. First of all, Business-to-Consumer e-commerce are online businesses attempt to reach individual consumers, which means selling the products online directly to the consumers while Business-to-Business e-commerce are businesses focused on selling their products to other businesses and it is the largest form of e-commerce.

Furthermore, Consumer-to-Consumer e-commerce provides ways for consumers to sell to each other, with the aid of the program which is supplied by the online market dealer such as the auction site eBay.com. With the use of peer-to-peer technology, Peer-to-Peer e-commerce enables the Internet users to share files directly without having to go through a central Web server. Last but not least, the M-commerce or mobile commerce enables consumers to do online transactions by utilizing wireless networks to connect mobile devices to the Web.

Based on the assignment question given, I was asked to choose an e-commerce website. As we know, there are many e-commerce sites today as the introduction of e-commerce has a huge growth spurt with the passing of time. A few examples of some popular e-commerce sites are amazon.com, staples.com, ticketmaster.com and walmart.com. Among these sites, I have chosen eBay for my reference as it has fulfilled the criteria in terms of its functionality, ease of use, ease of purchase as well as its design. In general, eBay is an e-commerce site which provides online marketplaces for the sale of products and services, online payment services and online communication offerings to people and businesses around the world.

2.0 The Seven Unique Features of eBay (Answer for Question 1)

As mentioned above, e-commerce is playing an important role in our daily lives as corporations and companies are becoming more dependent on technologies in the era of information technology. Therefore, e-commerce like eBay has challenged much of the old traditional business thinking. Thus, there are seven unique features of e-commerce technology which can be found in every e-commerce sites as well as the eBay.

2.1 Ubiquity

The eBay is ubiquitous, meaning that it is available just about everywhere, at all times and is accessible as long as there is an Internet connection nearby. It allows its customers to shop from their personal computers, at home, at work or even in the cars by using the mobile apps developed by eBay via their mobile devices, anytime. As for the traditional commerce, consumers would have to go to the marketplace, which is a physical place where the activity of buying and selling is going on in order for them to make transactions. Besides, ubiquity also reduces the transaction costs, which are the costs of participating in a market as it is unnecessary for consumers to spend time and money travelling to a physical marketplace.

2.2 Global Reach

The eBay site is global reachable, meaning that it reaches international boundaries as it is far more convenient than in the traditional commerce. Besides, the total number of consumers also increases because of the ease of access and the accessibility to everyone around the world. In contrast to the traditional commerce, eBay crosses national boundaries to a global audience easily.

2.3 Universal Standards

One strikingly unusual feature of e-commerce is that the technical standards of the Internet. Therefore, the technical standards for conducting e-commerce are universal standards, meaning that they are shared by all nations around the world. Of course, the universal technical standards of eBay greatly lower the market entry cost, which is the cost that merchants must pay just to bring their products to market. As for the consumers, universal standards reduce search costs, which is the effort required to find products that suits them. With eBay, it is possible for us to find all the suppliers, prices and delivery terms of a specific product easily, anywhere in the world as it has a standardized system which is shared by all nations across the globe.

2.4 Richness

Richness in an e-commerce site usually refers to the complexity and content of a message. This means that the combination of various multimedia elements such as text, graphics, audio and video are embedded in the eBay. Besides, the communications segment in eBay enables voice over Internet protocol between Skype users, as well as supplies connectivity to traditional fixed-line and mobile telephones. Thus, this richness makes eBay a very powerful selling or commercial environment.

2.5 Interactivity

The feature of interactivity in eBay shows that the technology works with the interaction of users. Also, interactivity in eBay allows two-way communication between merchant and consumer. Activities like asking the viewer some questions and entering into a conversation with a viewer are possible on eBay.

2.6 Information Density

As we know, e-commerce would never be possible without the Internet and the World Wide Web. Because of the Internet and the World Wide Web, the information density has hugely increased. In the simplest word, information density is the total amount and quality of information available to all market participants. Therefore, the e-commerce technologies such as the eBay has actually reduces information collection, processing, storage and communication costs while it greatly increases the currency, accuracy as well as the timeliness of information, meaning that information has become more useful and important than ever. This results in more plentiful, cheaper and a higher quality of information.

2.7 Personalization/Customization

Personalization here refers to the targeting of marketing messages to specific individuals by adjusting the message to a person’s name, interests and past purchases. For example, consumers can choose to subscribe to the weekly newsletters of a particular product provided by eBay based on their interest. Also, eBay can send these weekly newsletters to their customers based on their previous purchase transaction records.

Customization can be described as the changing of delivered product or service based on a user’s preferences or prior behavior. For example, a great deal of information about the consumer can easily be gathered in the eBay at the moment of purchase. Therefore, a great deal of information about the consumer’s past purchases can be stored and used by the eBay with the increase in information density.

2.8 Features that Implement Well and Poor In The eBay

In my opinion, eBay has implemented well in terms of its global reach feature. As we know, the eBay.com is one of the most popular e-commerce sites today and has become global reachable as it has reached international boundaries and is well known in countries around the world because of its convenience and the ease of use.

On the other hand, I think that the feature which implemented poorly in the eBay is the interactivity. Even though two-way communication between the seller and buyer is implemented in the eBay, but I personally think that this is not enough as most of these two-way communications are carried out through e-mails. By just communicating through the e-mails, messages may have not be delivered clearly to the other party and this would have caused problems for those who needed the product urgently as sending or replying in e-mails is slow. Therefore, I suggest that the eBay should have implemented the usage of real time chat or instant messaging in order to let their users to communicate effectively. Also, these features should have been in compatible with every web browser.

3.0 Conclusion

As a conclusion, e-commerce is becoming more and more important in the society today as technology is developing and advancing very rapidly. With the introduction of the Internet and the World Wide Web, we do not have to spend our time and money by purchasing items in the local malls or stores as we can make our payments through the e-commerce. Try to imagine the world without electronic commerce; we might have to purchase items in the traditional retail stores, which can be very time-consuming and inconvenient as we might have to wait in a long queue.

4.0 Introduction to Online Purchasing (Introduction for Question 2)

With the introduction of the Internet, the World Wide Web and the electronic commerce, online shopping has grown rapidly and has become one of the most common activities in the society today. In other words, people would like to purchase a product over the Internet, instead of going to a traditional brick-and-mortar store or a physical marketplace. People would have to simply buy products and make transactions through the Internet as most of them find it convenient since they can hardly find time for shopping. As mentioned above, the impact of the Internet and e-commerce are significant with more and more Internet users in the era of information technology. This results in a huge increase in online shopping websites across the globe. However, there are some advantages and disadvantages that the online shopping has actually brought to us.

5.0 Buying Two Products through Online (Answer for Question 2)

Based on the question given, I had bought two products through online and was asked to explain why I choose to purchase them through online. One of the reasons that I chose to buy them through online is because that the products that I bought are two antique statues which cannot be found in Malaysia as they were from Spain. By online purchasing, I can actually look for and purchase whatever products that I want around the world as the range of most online businesses are wide and global reachable. Besides, buying online products are truly much cheaper than buying products in local stores. Most importantly, the two antique statues that I bought are from Spain but I do not have to go there personally in order to purchase these items. These are the reasons that I chose to buy the products through online.

As mentioned above, there are some advantages of online purchasing as well as some disadvantages. The advantages and disadvantages of online purchasing are as below:

5.1 Advantages of Online Purchasing

5.1.1 Saves Time

By purchasing online, we can actually save up a significant amount of time. Instead of going from store to store to see the availability of a particular product and waiting in queues or in traffics, we can purchase our needs through online easily by sitting in front of the computer. In fact, our waiting time will be simply just the period required for the display of the website’s ordering page. Besides, purchasing online can save our time especially if we had already known what we’re looking for. Also, we can place our order with just only some clicks of the mouse and it will be sent right to our home within days or weeks! Even for those people who know what they would like but have no ideas where to find it, they can simply get the ideas by typing in the keywords in search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing and the related products that they are looking for will be shown.

5.1.2 Convenience

In terms of convenience, the e-commerce sites give us the privilege to shop whenever we want because they are available every day at anywhere. For example, the mobile commerce allows us to shop from our home to offices, anytime as long as there is an Internet connection. In contrast to most of the traditional retail stores, there is no specific business operating hours and is available every time to people across the globe. Furthermore, we do not need to have a very good computer literacy to shop through online. For example, we can buy ourselves a product simply by just visiting the e-commerce site and searching for that particular product.

5.1.3 Better Prices and Price Comparison

In online stores, we can get a cheaper deals and better prices as the products are sent directly to us by the manufacturer without involving any middleman. Furthermore, many online stores offer special discount and rebates from time to time to order to attract customers. Therefore, we can save a lot of money if we purchase products that have special discounts. Of course, we can also make price comparison between products easily by purchasing online. Furthermore, e-commerce sites provide simplified price and features comparison of products in order to help us in deciding which one should be purchased. For example, we can get ourselves the best deal or a cheaper price of a product once we have decided on what we want to buy in the online stores. In contrast, it would be more difficult to compare between features and prices of products if we choose to shop from local malls and stores.

5.2 Disadvantages of Online Purchasing

5.2.1 Shipping Costs

Usually, a very high shipping cost will be set by companies and is added to our total spending even though most of the online retailers offer free shipping, but that only applies if the cost of our order reaches a certain minimum amount. In general, the shipping cost usually depends on the size or the weight of that particular product. Besides, we are likely asked to pay for the extra taxes for the products if they are being shipped from foreign countries. Therefore, the additional shipping charges for items especially the larger and heavier ones are making the purchase not worthwhile as well as much less attractive than buying from local retailers.

5.2.2 Delay in Delivery

Unlike traditional retail stores, we have to wait for a certain period in order for us to receive the products that we have bought from online stores. Of course, it can take up from days to weeks or even months if our products are being shipped from another country as we have to wait for our order to be assembled, packed, shipped and delivered to us. Besides of our frustration for not getting our product on time after we had placed our order, online stores will not be responsible for the delay of our product. By purchasing online, we cannot just acquire our products immediately even after when we had paid for it as it needs some time for the products to be delivered to us.

5.2.3 Personal Data and Credit Card Scam

One of the most concerned factors of online shopping is that we have to reveal our personal data and also credit card numbers to online retailers. However, this threat is comparatively little in the websites which are security verified secured and protected as well as the websites which have the information regarding this problem are displayed on their website clearly. Also, the online payment mode may not be secure in most of the websites as we are making payments with our debit or credit cards and not by paying cash upon the delivery of our product. Therefore, it is very important for us to ensure that the payment gateway of that website is secured and to know what they will do with our personal information by reading the privacy policy provided by that website.

5.2.4 No Testing of Products and Its Condition

For some people who are very particular about the quality of the products, they would rather go to the traditional shopping malls to purchase the products as they are not able to see, to touch and to try out or test the products before making their payments via online shopping. By just looking at an online photo of the product, we are not able to feel it physically and to examine the product. Therefore, we do not know whether that the products that we purchased online are in a good or defect condition. Even if the products are defective, the only choice we can do is to ship them back to the online retailer for replacement and this may take several days to weeks. Also, we are often responsible for the return shipping costs unless it is a manufacturing problem. However, some online retailers may not provide any replacement at all if the product we received is defective.

6.0 Conclusion

As a conclusion, some people may prefer online shopping because of its convenience as well as time and money saving while some do not think so as it may be a scam and they are most likely worried about getting a defective item. Hence, people should get some tips for a safe and secure online shopping from their friends or people they know who have experienced online purchasing and by doing some research through the Internet in order to purchase online products successfully. However, the problems such as delay in delivery, scamming in personal information and credit cards as well as the condition of the products can be easily avoided if we are buying from reputable online retailers as their websites are secured and protected. Of course, we are actually the one who decides for shopping online by taking all the pros and cons into consideration as each type of shopping has its advantages and disadvantages.