The history and evolution of E-commerce

Hi to all my dearest friends. Welcome to my second post and thanks for reviewing my post. Today, i would like to share a very interesting fact with all of you. I guess most of you will have plenty of questions about E-commerce, right? Questions such as do all of you know what is E-commerce, how does E-commerce function, what is the history and evolution of E-commerce are filling in the minds now. Well,I will explain all the uncertainties to all of you. Electronic commerce is a growing aspect of business community that formally in the use of digital transactions between and among businesses and individuals. In other words, E-commerce is in the use of the Internet to conduct business.

Next, let me explain on the history and evolution of E-commerce. E-commerce is initially emerged from the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). There are several important steps involved in the history of E-commerce. The first step came from the development of EDI. EDI is a set of standard that created in the 1960's for the purpose of exchanging business information and do electronic transactions. At first there is several dissimilar EDI formats that can be used and this disallows companies to interact with each other, but in 1984 the ASC X12 standard become stable n reliable in transferring large volume of transactions.

The second step happens in 1992 when the Mosaic web-browser which was the first "point and click" browser was made available. Mosaic web-browser quickly adapt itself into Netscape, a download able browser that allow easier access to E-commerce. The third step is the development of DSL. The development of DSL is very important to the evolution of E-commerce because it allows faster access and a persistent connection to the Internet. Christmas of 1998 and development of Red Hat Linux were two of the major steps in the evolution of E-commerce.

However, most critical step was in the year 2000, when a major merger was created between Time Warner and AOL. The merger which worth $350 millions was brought together a major online company with a traditional company. Unfortunately, in February 2000, some major players of E-commerce such as Yahoo,Amazon and etc were attacked by hackers.


Today, the largest E-commerce is Business to Business (B2B). Other varieties growing today are Consumer to Consumer(C2C), and Peer to Peer(P2P). Lastly, i wish this post will give some knowledge to all of you about E-commerce. Please stay tune for more interesting fact from me. Thanks you.

How does E-Commerce Reduce Cycle Time, Improve Employees' Empowerment and Facilitate Customer Support

Due to the booming usage of internet, E-Commerce is getting usual in our life. And now, its advantages will be discussed in this post.

Reduce cycle time
As we known, E-Commerce is designed as paperless based workflow with faster, more efficient and reliable communication between computers. And website can remain open 24 hours, it would not affected by the boundaries of geography and other barriers. So, E-Commerce reduces the unnecessary phone calls and mailings, electronic data exchange allows business to continue outside the normal business day. Besides, employees are allowed to access customer inventory data to decide whether to place order. As a result, it could reduce its cycle time from the stage of purchasing to delivery. Furthermore, all these stages can be monitored, and the orders can be easily passed and processed to other related department. For example,

Improve Employees' empowerment
Empowerment is defined as giving authority to employees in decision making in order to improve operation and quality, reduce costs without consulting manager. In Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system, employees are given authority to access customer database to obtain relevant information. If customer's inventory below minimum level, employee will place the order. Besides, employees are allowed to verify order received and checking customer's credibility.

Facilitate customer support

Nowadays, efficient customer support is vital to E-Commerce business. Sometimes, merely publishing online catalog and offer a list of frequently asked questions will not satisfy online customer needs. So, immediate response to customer is viewed as important task of company. Since the company has shared database, employees can obtain customer and relevant information immediately in order to solve problem. Besides, customer can trace its product in which stage of production through seller’s website. For example, Dell provides this function to their customer to trace product. Moreover, customer can download relevant software from Dell website. It helps customer solve their problem.

link:

1.http://www.remarkable.co.nz/ebusiness/ebusiness_cost_benefit.htm 2.http://ecommerce.objectwareinc.com/art/benefit-of-ecommerce/index.html 3.http://203.210.126.185/dsdweb/v4/apps/web/secure/docs/2285.pdf

An example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

At the year of Millennium, dotcom which is one of the examples of e commerce face a huge doom in loss. This internet company was in such a rush to go public that forgot one small detail which is a sound business plan. Profitability couldn’t be reached due to a lot of investment capital was poorly spent on planned companies. Poor Human Resources management did occur as well. Due to lots of cash in their hands, this company hired too many staffs or even worse, hired unqualified staffs. The hiring of friends and relatives often returned no value on investments.

In addition, poor financial management did occur in Dotcom Company. It is because they provide free foods for customers and even the employees. They did build fancy offices which cost massive amount which doesn’t make any gain to the company. There are even hundreds of errors could be found in just one web page of dotcom. Many customers did complain about the incorrect price and even the length and weight of the online products. Therefore customer dissatisfaction occurs and this company has to pay back to customers in return of cash. Lack of advertising gives a poor result for this company. Nobody even knows this company really exists.

Link: http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id333/pg1/index.html

Example of an E-commerce success and its causes

E-commerce is defined as business activities conducted using electronic data transmission technologies, such as those used on the internet. E-commerce is basically very broad and brings numerous advantages to the users of internet. One of the E-commerce successes is Yahoo!. Yahoo began from a hobby and then developed into a global brand that has changed the way people communicate, search and access information cum purchase stuff. David Filo and Jerry Yang who found yahoo started their yahoo journey since Feb 1994. The main purpose at that time was to provide a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. That was how Yahoo started. In 1994, Yahoo had its first one million-hit day. Later in April 1995, the founders agreed to fund Yahoo with capital nearly $2 million.

Nowadays, Yahoo is one of the most popular E-commerce companies in the world. Yahoo offers a variety of network services to more than 345 million individuals each month worldwide. Yahoo’s revenue is increasing from day to day. The revenues for yahoo that I get from the internet are as follows:

The main success of Yahoo is due to the strategic planning by the people involved. Yahoo provides search engine for everyone who uses Yahoo. Besides that, the information uploaded on Yahoo is up-to-date. Therefore, many people visit Yahoo everyday and increase Yahoo attractiveness toward marketing services such as advertisement. Furthermore, the friendly interface of Yahoo contributes to its successful. Yahoo knows the demand of its client and designed to suit the client needs.

Reference:
Electronic Commerce: From Vision To Fulfillment-Awad, E. M. (2007)
E-Business and E-Commerce Management-Chaffey, D. (2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html