Electronic
commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce,
consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the
Internet and other computer
networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown
extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is
conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection
systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the
transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of
technologies such as e-mail,
mobile devices and telephones as well.
A large percentage
of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium
content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation
of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known
as e-tail. Almost all big
retailers have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.
Electronic commerce
is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the
exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the
business transactions.
EARLY DEVELOPMENT
Originally,
electronic commerce was identified as the facilitation of commercial
transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic
Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing
businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices
electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller
machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic
commerce. Another form of e-commerce was the airline reservation system
typified by Sabre in the USA and Travicom in the UK.
From the 1990s
onward, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data
warehousing.
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web web browser and transformed an academic
telecommunication network into a worldwide every man everyday communication
system called internet/www. Commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited by NSF until
1995.[1] Although the
Internet became popular worldwide around 1994 with the adoption of Mosaic web browser, it took about five years
to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the
Internet. By the end of 2000, many European and American business companies
offered their services through the World
Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "e commerce"
with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure
protocols and electronic payment services.
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