The history and evolution of E-commerce

Electronic commerce (EC) is the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and/or information via computer networks, including the Internet. In the late 1970s electronic commerce was meant to facilitate of commercial transactions electronically using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) which helps to extend interbusiness transactions from financial institutions to other types of business and also provides transactions and information exchanges from suppliers to the end customers. Besides that, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) was also being introduces allowing organizations to transfer funds between one another electronically. Both EDI and EFT was introduced to allow businesses to send commercial documents such as purchase orders or invoices electronically. In the 1980s, the growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking are also a form of electronic commerce. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce includes enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

According to Schneider and Turban, with the progress of Internet technology and a highly developed global Internet community, a strong foundation of prosperous electronic commerce continues to be built. During the 1990s, the Internet was opened for commercial use; it was also the period that users started to participate in World Wide Web (WWW), and the phenomenon of rapid personal computer (PCs) usage growth. Due to the rapid expansion of the WWW network; e-commerce software; and the peer business competitions, large number of dot-coms and Internet Starts-ups appeared. Integrated with the commercialization of the Internet, Web invention, and PC networks these three important factors made electronic commerce possible and successful.

TIME LINES:

• 1990: The first web browser WorldWideWeb (www) was wrote by Tim Berners-Lee , using a NeXT computer.
• 1992: J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn published Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change the Way We Shop and What We Buy. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312063598.
• 1994: The Navigator browser with the code name Mozilla was released by Netscape in October. Pizza ordering was offered by pizzahut on its Web page. The first online bank opened. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials were also commercially available, as were cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 in late 1994 introduced SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
• 1995:Amazon.com was launched by Jeff Bezos and the first commercial-free 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio started broadcasting. Dell and Cisco began to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay was founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
• 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
• 1999: business.com was sold for US $7.5 million, which was purchased in 1997 for US $150,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster was launched.
• 2000: The dot-com bust.
• 2003: Amazon.com had its first year with a full year of profit.

Information above are adopted and refined from:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce

• M/Cyclopedia of New Media

An example of an e-commerce failure & its causes

One of an example of an e-commerce failure is Webvan. Webvan was an online grocery retailer. In the quest to become the number one online grocer, Webvan managed their way through a tangled web of operational changes. Webvan is an interesting failure, it was started in 1999 by Louis Borders, founding partner of Borders Books. The company spent an extraordinary amount of money during its short tenure as the largest and most promising pure play e-grocer.

The reasons for failure of Webvan are because Webvan invested in technology and an infrastructure that was too expensive for low margin products. Webvan’s founder, Louis Borders, had experience with larger margin products, where profits are not solely dependent on volume. Webvan expected a high adoption rate to their e-grocer business, however, people were skeptical about the lack of control over the quality of the product. Thus, the lack of volume in grocery sales was the prime contributor to the lack of debt repayment. With regard to technology, Webvan did not rely on the experience of others. Neither did they have any experience in the grocery market.

Besides, the poor to connect with their customers also may cause their business failed. They want to satisfy the customer so they tried to deliver the groceries in 30 minutes. Although it is a good service but some of the customers would like their groceries to be delivered at night because they were working at day time. Moreover, the deliveries will sometimes be late and the customer was not at home when the van was there.

Thus, on 9 July 2001, Webvan went bankrupt and began its liquidation.

E-commerce Success : eBay

The company that we think is very successful in e-commerce is the eBay Inc. which is the owner of eBay.com. eBay.com is an American Internet company that provides the function of online auction and shopping. The website has also established localized websites in a total of total over countries including Malaysia.
The reason that contributes the success of the company is that eBay provides a variety of goods from all over the world to be sold online. However, users are required to be registered first as a user of eBay.com before proceeding in any transactions. Goods are being sold including antiques as long as it does not violate the eBay Prohibited and Restricted item policy. Items would be sold in either the auction method or the fixed price method. In the auction method, the starting price and minimum bid will be set by the seller and the buyer that quote the highest price will get the goods. In the fixed price method, the item would have a price where buyers who agree to that price will get the goods. eBay always update its website where currently gifts for Father's Day are being auctioned.


Some purchases in eBay are made through the usage of the eBay payment system, PayPal. This made the company earn more as eBay owns the payment system and with every transactions made in eBay, fees are being paid to both eBay and PayPal.

Currently, more and more people from all over the world are using internet to sell or purchase items which they desires. This is because shops online would not close and operates 24 hours a day for the whole year round. Therefore, by having a website (eBay.com) that provide this function would certainly make eBay Inc a successful e-commerce company in present as well as in the future.

You can visit the website yourself in:

• http://www.ebay.com.my/
• https://www.paypal.com/

Information above are adopted and refined from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay

Discuss how E-Commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees' empowerment and facilitate customer support

Reduce the cycle time
Nowadays e-commerce became most commonly for seller and buyer for doing business transaction. One of the ways to reduce the cycle time is going through by e-commerce. Cycle time is the total time from the beginning to end of processing between customer making an order and obtaining the goods. The purpose of e-commerce is reduced the cycle time because it can avoid spending too much processing time and labor hour, very convenient to conduct business. For example, e-banking can help student paid UTAR student’s bill without queue up in the internet. Besides that, e-commerce can also reduce sales transaction through the internet without face to face meet the customer. For these purpose, the e-commerce system can carry out the transaction effectively and save time.

Improve employees’ empowerment
E-commerce can empower employee by using the decentralization authority to make own decision rather than using the centralization authority. These methods can let the employee perform their work better, free to make own decision, able to share the knowledge with the other collogue by using the internet technology. For example, empowered salespeople and customer service employees are given the authority to make customer satisfied with their products and services and this helps to increase customer loyalty. On the other hand, empowerment employment can allow the employee provide their feedback by setting up the forum to chat with subordinate.

Facilitate customer support
For the facilitate customer support, e-commerce can provide customer service which is Frequently Ask Question (FAQ) to get the customers' understanding. Besides that, it can try to improve their quality of service by getting customer comment. The customer can go through the company website to place order they want. And it also can let customer customize their own product in that website such as nike.com and jaguar.com. for this purpose, it lead to customer is more satisfaction about their product when product is placed order.