The Worldwide Influence of Electronic Commerce Essay

The Worldwide Influence of Electronic Commerce - Essay Example Electronic commerce, EC, e-commerce or e-commerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases, and mobile phones. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-commerce) Today, it has been proved that opening a website or getting a large number of hits on them is not enough to get the real business - for example, costs and revenues are also countable and not just website hits. An E-commerce business requires special consideration. On the other hand, it is essential to remember that all the business practices that apply in general business are not normally applicable to electronic commence. E-commerce can apply to purchases made through the Web or to business-to-business activities such as inventory transfers. A customer can order items from a vendor's Web site, paying with a credit card (the customer enters account information via the computer) or with a previously established "cybercash" account. The transaction information is transmitted (usually by modem) to a financial institution for payment clearance and to the vendor for order fulfillment. Personal and account information is kept confidential through the use of "secured transactions" that use encryption technology.