Electronic Commerce

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注:B2C,C2C,C2B是自己加进去的不知道合理不???

I  Introduction

Electronic Commerce or e-commerce, the exchange of goods and services by means of the Internet or other computer networks. E-commerce follows the same basic principles as traditional commerce—that is, buyers and sellers come together to exchange goods for money. But rather than conducting business in the traditional way—in stores and other “brick and mortar” buildings or through mail order catalogs and telephone operators—in e-commerce buyers and sellers transact business over networked computers.

E-commerce offers buyers convenience. They can visit the World Wide Web sites of multiple vendors 24 hours a day and seven days a week to compare prices and make purchases, without having to leave their homes or offices. In some cases, consumers can immediately obtain a product or service, such as an electronic book, a music file, or computer software, by downloading it over the Internet.

For sellers, e-commerce offers a way to cut costs and expand their markets. They do not need to build, staff, or maintain a store or print and distribute mail order catalogs. Automated order tracking and billing systems cut additional labor costs, and if the product or service can be downloaded, e-commerce firms have no distribution costs. Because they sell over the global Internet, sellers have the potential to market their products or services globally and are not limited by the physical location of a store. Internet technologies also permit sellers to track the interests and preferences of their customers with the customer’s permission and then use this information to build an ongoing relationship with the customer by customizing products and services to meet the customer’s needs.

E-commerce also has some disadvantages, however. Consumers are reluctant to buy some products online. Online furniture businesses, for example, have failed for the most part because customers want to test the comfort of an expensive item such as a sofa before they purchase it. Many people also consider shopping a social experience. For instance, they may enjoy going to a store or a shopping mall with friends or family, an experience that they cannot duplicate online. Consumers also need to be reassured that credit card transactions are secure and that their privacy is respected.


II  Types of E-Commerce

A variety of businesses are conducted online, including retail businesses that sell products to consumers, service providers that sell services to consumers, auctioneers that create a marketplace for products and services, and business-to-business commerce. Retail transactions make up the largest part of e-commerce. Consumers can find computers, automobiles, clothing, books, music, airline and event tickets, food, and just about anything else for sale on the Internet.

A  Product Transactions

Retail Web sites typically include electronic catalogs that describe and display products for sale. Consumers can search for individual items or randomly browse electronic catalogs, some much larger than their mail order print counterparts. An Internet book retailer, for example, can offer millions of different book titles for sale on its Web site, far more titles than could fit into a store or that could be included cost-effectively in a print catalog.

Many online retailers allow customers to order products and then track the shipment of their order. Some computer manufacturers also allow consumers to choose different combinations of computer components, selecting the combination that best suits their budget and needs. Customers can then visit the company’s Web site to track the progress of their computer purchase as it is being built and shipped. Many online retailers also automatically notify their customers by e-mail when the product has been shipped.

B  Service Transactions

Other e-commerce businesses offer services. Financial services represent a large segment of e-commerce. For a small fee, online investment brokerages trade stocks on behalf of their clients. Online stock brokerages typically charge customers lower fees than traditional stock brokerages. Other sites provide consumers with a way to research and obtain mortgages and other loans online.

Travel sites offer a method of scheduling airline flights, renting cars, and booking hotel rooms. Travelers can plan all the details of their vacation or business trip, make reservations, and purchase tickets at the same site. Such sites also offer maps, travel literature, and booking information for travelers.

C  Auctions

Some e-commerce sites specialize in bringing buyers and sellers together, rather than selling products from their own inventories. Online auctioneers provide sellers a way to list and display items for sale and take bids from interested buyers. An online auctioneer may bring together millions of users and feature more than 700,000 items at any given time. In exchange for the auctioneer’s services, sellers pay the auctioneer a small fixed fee and a portion of the proceeds from the sale. Other sites invert this model. These sites enable bidders to name the price they are willing to pay for a particular product or service and then try to find a seller who is willing to meet that price.

D  Business-to-Business Transactions (B2B)

Business-to-business commerce represents one of the fastest growing segments of e-commerce. Businesses order supplies and coordinate complicated projects electronically. For example, construction companies use e-commerce to order construction materials and coordinate the work of subcontractors. Before e-commerce, this work was conducted via telephone, facsimile, and regular mail. Subcontractors often lost time waiting for necessary parts to arrive or for another part of the project to be completed. With e-commerce, however, software can automatically track the inventories of manufacturers and suppliers so that both have adequate supplies on hand and no longer need to have excess inventories. Reducing inventories enables both manufacturers and suppliers to lower costs. The labor-intensive method of printing and then faxing or mailing purchase orders can also be avoided because software can create purchase orders and send them electronically.

E  Business-to-Customer Transactions (B2C)

"Electronic commerce" is generally understood mostly as selling goods or services to people ("final consumers"). This is not, so far, the biggest part of online business. It’s also often seen as unsuccessful, for the simple reason that hopes sere set too high, too soon, and that countless attempts ere poorly planned and managed. In spite of the delusions and disappointments, it will continue to grow. But it’s not as easy as too many sellers of ready-made solutions are claiming. There are no shortcuts. Selling online doesn’t work unless it’s well integrated with logistics, buying, etcetera. This can’t be done overnight by installing a piece of standard software or setting up a web site. It takes patience, time, consistency and care – a long-term commitment and a willingness to experiment and learn. There would be much more success now in this area id there hadn’t been so many false prophecies, bad starts, hasty projects, poorly conceived operations, unkempt promises – and therefore disappointments

F  Customer-to-Customer Transactions (C2C)

Person-to-person transactions are the oldest form of e-business. They’ve been there from the beginning, long before there was any widespread use of the internet. They continue to be all over the place, quite invisible to anyone thinking that all business is on a website. They can (in part) be supported on large and visible websites. As in the case of the so called "auctions" that have been growing fast all over the place – but they are only one of many ways of helping people to deal directly with each other or to buy more conveniently from companies.

G  Customer-to-Business Transactions (C2B)

The most important activity in e-commerce isn’t selling. It’s buying. Quite often that doesn’t mean buying online but checking, comparing, analyzing quality and price before baying in traditional stores or services. Customer empowerment isn’t a legend or a theory, It’s hard fact and it will grow as more people become more aware of the tools they have to pick and choose – and negotiate. This could be the single most important development in the new economy. Maybe scaring for some companies, but an opportunity for all who know how to find the right clues. With or without the internet, in many businesses the concept of marketing (even of market) will have to change radically. We are only at the beginning of a development that can have vast and deep consequences.

E-commerce helps trucking and shipping companies match shipments with shippers. Before e-commerce, it was not uncommon for trucks or ships to drop off a shipment and then return to their base of operations empty. This practice was inefficient and cost the trucking or shipping company money. Specialized e-commerce software, along with the Global Positioning System (GPS), enables trucking firms to track the whereabouts of their trucks at all times and make better decisions as to how their trucks are routed so they can respond efficiently and cost-effectively to companies that need their services, dramatically reducing the number of trucks returning empty.

III  Issues Affecting the Development of E-Commerce

Internet sales and transactions in the retail and services sectors increased significantly from 1999 to 2002. According to the United States Bureau of the Census, retail e-commerce sales increased from $15 billion in 1999 to $44 billion in 2002. The Census Bureau noted that in 2002 retail e-commerce sales represented only 1.5 percent of total retail sales. However, studies have shown that e-commerce has become very significant in certain product categories. For example, in 2002, 32 percent of computer hardware and software sales were transacted online, 17 percent of ticket sales were done over the Internet, and 12 percent of book sales were completed electronically, according to a study by the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research.

A number of unresolved issues have unfolded as e-commerce transactions have grown in number and value. Among these issues are taxation, security, privacy, and profitability.

A  Taxation

Because the Internet transcends national boundaries and also state or provincial boundaries within a nation, the issue of sales taxes on goods or services purchased over the Internet poses a problem for many governments that rely on sales tax revenue to fund government programs and services. The Internet is a largely tax-free zone. One study reported in 2001 found that state and local governments in the United States lost an estimated $13.3 billion in uncollected sales taxes on Internet purchases made that year. State and local governments have been lobbying the U.S. Congress to impose some kind of uniform sales tax that all e-commerce businesses would be required to pay. E-commerce businesses, however, have lobbied against such measures, arguing that it would impose a heavy burden on them. The European Union (EU) is also considering a proposal to impose sales taxes on Internet purchases by consumers. The EU already has a method for taxing business-to-business transactions over the Internet.

B  Security

Established encryption methods such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), a protocol developed by Netscape Communications Corporation, encode credit card numbers and other information to foil would-be thieves. Shoppers can determine if the site they are using is secure by noting the “secure” icon at the bottom of their browser window. Also, the address bar of Internet browsers will carry the “https” prefix instead of the standard “http” prefix when the site is secured. Nevertheless, some consumers are reluctant to divulge credit card information over the Internet, and this reluctance has hindered the growth of e-commerce.

An alternative to credit card information is digital cash, or e-cash. In this arrangement, shoppers pay for a number of virtual credits through a single source, then use those credits as dollars when shopping. After checkout, the online retailer ships the goods to the buyer and adds shipping costs to the purchase price. Few e-commerce sites, however, offer e-cash.

C  Privacy

In addition to credit card security, many shoppers worry about privacy. To put them at ease, many Internet stores post “privacy statements” that explain their policy of sharing or not sharing customer information with other businesses. This privacy policy may include refusing to give the customer’s name and e-mail address to companies that send unsolicited and unwanted commercial e-mail messages, often known as junk mail or spam.

In 2003 the U.S. Congress passed legislation designed to curb spam. The new law made it illegal for senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail to disguise their identity by using false return addresses or misleading subject lines. Violators were subject to steep fines and possible prison terms. The law also prohibited the gathering of e-mail addresses from Web sites. Sponsors of the legislation estimated that the incredible growth in spam, representing about half of all e-mails, cost Internet access providers $9 billion annually in technology-related expenses necessary to handle the increased volume of mail. Clogged in-boxes also annoyed consumers and made it difficult to distinguish between solicited and unsolicited commercial e-mail messages.

D  Profitability

A large percentage of e-commerce businesses went bankrupt in 2000 and 2001, mostly due to inadequate business plans and excessive spending on advertising and marketing to attract customers to their Web sites. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s had largely turned into a dot-com bust as the 21st century began. An estimated 520 e-commerce businesses either ceased operation or declared bankruptcy from 1999 to 2001, resulting in the layoffs of nearly 100,000 employees, according to Fortune Magazine. However, a number of e-commerce sites began to report profits in 2001 and 2002. Notable among them were Amazon.com, Inc., based in Seattle, Washington, which pioneered many of the tools and procedures now commonplace in online retailing, Expedia, an online travel site, and eBay, a popular auction site.