E-commerce may have several definitions but the one commonly was known is that this is the process of buying, selling, transferring or even exchanging products or good and services or information over an electronic network specifically the internet. E-commerce falls into several categories i.e.
- Business to consumer – between businesses and customers.
- Business to business – between a business and other businesses
- Consumer-to-consumer – between consumers themselves.
- Consumer-to-business – between a consumer and a business.
Brief history of e-commerce
E-commerce began as early as the 1960s, as in the 1970s most businesses used Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) to send commercial documents such as invoices and purchase orders electronically. In the 1980s there was a wide usage of electronic sharing of documents and also the acceptance of credit card system, ATMs, and Telephone banking. In the 1990s the rise of internet commercial set-up like e-bay and amazon which offered their services over the internet and were widely accepted by internet users. Currently, consumers can buy anything be it goods and services over the internet anywhere anytime.
Application areas
E-commerce has several application areas such as email, online banking, electronic ticketing, shopping carts, online shopping and order tracking and other web services. But the most common application is online shopping where merchants or businesses sell goods and services over the internet. This has led to other sectors such as digital marketing and social media marketing in order to coerce consumers into taking part in or embrace e-commerce.
E-commerce has several benefits to both the consumers and business. The benefits to the consumers include the availability of more goods and services, direct participation, instant delivery on purchases, cheaper and helps cut on expenses. Its benefits to businesses are reduced operation cost, availability 24 hours, room for customization, increased customer raptor and ability to reach the global market. E-commerce also has its shortcomings like lack of direct contact between the consumer and the good he/she is buying hence the lack of confirmation of whether it’s genuine, at times there are limited services provided, and consumers have to wait long for shipping or delivery.
The fast growth of e-commerce has led to the need for the need for consumer data privacy and security hence in the process has forced technicians to develop better e-commerce applications and systems that will satisfy this kind of issues involving confidential identity data privacy rules and protocols to protect this kind of information from. The technicians also conduct infrastructural design in order to be able to store the large a large amount of data involve in form of customer information.
Governments’ efforts in regulating e-commerce activities
Some governments like the united states have put in place institutions like Federal Trade Commission and Payment Industry Security Standards Council to regulate e-commerce. These agencies regulate activities such as customer privacy. They also provide procedures on how payments are handled and how personal financial information should be stored and protected. This to prevent cases of this sensitive information leaking without user consent.