E Commerce History Present and Future Trends

Document Type:Thesis

Subject Area:Technology

Document 1

E-commerce utilizes such technologies as automated data collection systems, inventory management systems, electronic data interchange (EDI), online processing of transactions, internet marketing, mobile commerce and electronic money transfers. Although other technologies such as the email are used in e-commerce, the World Wide Web is an essential component of the life cycle of the business transaction. The main forms of e-commerce include business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer, consumer-to-business, business-to-administration and consumer-to-administration. Origin and History of E-commerce The history of e-commerce is rich and dates back to the 1960s when primitive electronic data transactions began. In spite of the fact computer technology was not evolved at the time, businesses still made electronic transactions. eBay and Amazon are considered as the two organizations that revolutionized e-commerce.

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The first full-scale online retail business model was created by Amazon with the first book being sold online on the platform in July 1995 (Hussung, 2016). Thanks to the efforts of these two organizations, the e-commerce market is now specialized and high developed making it easy for users to purchase nearly everything online. Also worth mentioning is the reduction in the cost of establishing an online store over years with the cost being at about $100000 in 1999 and presently being as low as up to $30 (Hussung, 2016). Current Use of E-commerce One of the main uses of e-commerce at the present is online shopping. The second factor is trust. This is mainly determined by e-word of mouth which entails the reviews that the online retailers get from previous shoppers as well as recommendations from other consumers who have successfully transacted business with the online retailers.

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Better reviews increase the confidence of consumer in the online retailer’s ability to deliver (Kim. Ferrin, and Rao, 2008). The third factor is website quality. More access to information: e-commerce allows consumers to search and access more information pertaining to the products and services they are shopping for with more ease and transparency (Kim. Ferrin, and Rao, 2008). Some of the main disadvantages of e-commerce include: 1. Inability to see and touch a product before purchase: sometimes the online images out up by the online retailers do not give as detailed description as seeing and touching the product would. This often results in dissatisfaction when the product delivered does not meet the expectations of the buyer (Al-Debei, Akroush & Ashouri, 2015). He predicts that more businesses will automate their customer service processes through investment in chatbot services.

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He also acknowledges the growth in the market for both automated customer services and chatbots in the recent past citing that by 2020, about 80% of businesses will have shifted to automated chatbot technology (Popomaronis, 2017) 3. Increased personalization: it is expected that e-commerce will become more sensitive to the individual needs of the consumers. William Harris; an e-commerce expert with Elumynt, says that online vendors will grow from consideration of recommended products based on the general buying habits of consumers towards looking at catered recommendations that are grounded upon the individual preferences of the consumers (Popomaronis, 2017). References Al-Debei, M. “Online Shopping in the 1980s’ IEEE”. Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 33, No. Pp. 57-61 Hussung, T. L. and Rao, H. R. (2008), “A trust-based consumer decision-making model in electronic commerce: the role of trust, perceived risk, and their antecedents”.

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