E-Commerce and Electronic Commerce

E-commerce or EC or electronic commerce implies distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. It can also refer to the use of internet for e-mailing newsletters to customers or providing a web site with information for prospective customers that result in phone sales or inquires. The major components of e-commerce are electronic fund transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data exchange, automated inventory management systems and automated data collection systems. It relies upon the use of electronic communications technology such as Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases and mobile phones.Electronic commerce has existed for more than 40 years. Ecommerce in its earliest form was the use of EDI(electronic data interchange) which meant sending commercial documents like purchase order or invoices electronically. It facilitated the exchange of information in a standardized format between two computer systems.Ecommerce flourished after the rise of Internet and the World Wide Web in 1994.Consumers wanted to make use of credit card purchases but in a secure environment. Netscape developed and implemented the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol and combined it with their Navigator Web browser in 1994 and 1995. It released the SSL protocol in the public domain SSL encrypts data transmitted over the Web. SSL and its successor TLS(Transport Layer Security ) have become the de facto standards for conducting secure e-commerce transactions over the Web.Some of the first e-commerce sites that sprang up in 1994 included Pizza Hut (http://www.pizzahut.com), CDNow (http://www.cdnow.com), and an online mall called the Internet Shopping Network. Online bookseller Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com), perhaps the best-known e-commerce site, opened its online doors in July 1995. Companies like Dell Computers (http://www.dell.com), Kodak (http://www.kodak.com), and Federal Express (http://www.federalexpress.com) also had Web sites by 1995.Though e-commerce offers several benefits, a company should take into consideration certain factors like the market size of the product, nature of business etc before implementing e-commerce for the firm.If the market is only domestic and the firm does not wish to expand its services in the future or if the market of the product is very small or if the product is something like selling perishable goods such as food materials it should not choose e-commerce, as the ultimate costs will exceed its operational costs causing tremendous loss to the company.As far as big companies are concerned and as we move towards globalization e-commerce plays a vital role in the growth and progress of the companies.

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