E-Commerce: Its Development and Future Perspectives

E-commerce: Its Development and Future Perspectives

Anthony William

Sample Essay

Writers Cash

February 5, 2014

Electronic commerce advancements have taken the world by storm. This has become a new means of doing business. New products are becoming available online on a day-to-day basis. This scenario has led to increased competitiveness among businesses creating a business environment that favors the fittest. As a result, businesses have adopted modern technology to thrive and remain relevant in the ever-changing business environment. This study discusses the development of e-commerce and its future prospects.

E-Commerce is the use of electronic systems to perform business transactions. E-Commerce comes in various forms ranging from electronic funds transfer, tracking of shipments and bookings in hospitality and transport industries.

E-commerce became the next big thing after the industrial revolution. During industrial revolution, the cost of doing business was high. Business operations involved small transactions that needed high specialization through intermediaries. E- Commerce emerged to remove these flaws. E- Commerce emerged in 1979 when online shopping became a reality. By 1982, ordering of items over the internet became evident in France. Since then, Netscape, Pizza Hut, PayPal, EBay and Amazon have become the biggest players in this industry. Initially, e-commerce operations experienced slow dial-up connections. Lately, e-commerce has evolved tremendously from online billboards to personalized shopping experience. Increased usage of internet of up to 2 billion people has led to rapid growth of e-commerce translating to business transactions worth $8 trillion annually. E-commerce has led to economic transformation where the supply chain has gone global thereby creating more job opportunities.

There are three categories of e-commerce based on the buyer-seller relationship namely: business to consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B) and...