Facts about Ecommerce

Let’s talk about ecommerce, in this article, we shall tell you what ecommerce is all about.

From the decade of the 1990’s, the concept of ecommerce would include data mining, data warehousing, and enterprise resource planning systems, and a good example of the use of ecommerce in physical goods would the Boston Computer Exchange – which was a marketplace launched in 1982, for used computers. The American Information Exchange was an early online information marketplace; it was also an online system that was introduced in 1991.

In 1990, the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, and thus an academic telecommunication network was transformed into a worldwide communication system for even the laymen. However, up until 1991, commercial enterprise was prohibited on the internet. In 1994, the internet became popular when the first online shopping started, but of course you must take into account the introduction of DSL and security protocols, which allowed continued connection to the Internet. By the time the new millennium rolled around, many European and American business companies had started offering their services online, through the World Wide Web – and then ecommerce as a concept began to be associated with the ability to buy goods and services through the Internet, through secure protocols and electronic payment services.

Many applications commonly use ecommerce – like newsgroups, email, electronic tickets, enterprise content management, online banking, online office suites, instant messaging, online shopping and order tracking, domestic and international payment systems, teleconferencing, shopping cart software, etc.

However, ecommerce has met with its share of regulation. For instance, in the United States, some ecommerce activities are being regulated by the Federal Trade Commission – which includes the use of commercial emails, online advertising, and consumer privacy. There is also the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which has established national standards for regulating the direct marketing over email. In fact, the Federal Trade Commission Act regulates all forms of advertising – like online advertising, and says that all advertising should be truthful and not deceptive in any way. Security of personal information falls under this.

Today, ecommerce involves quite a lot of things from ordering digital content for immediate online consumption, to ordering conventional goods and services, one may also include meta services to facilitate other kinds of ecommerce. If we are talking about the consumer level, ecommerce is generally conducted on the World Wide Web. You could go online to buy basically anything – books, music, groceries, clothes, or even real estate. Even online banking falls under ecommerce – buying stocks, transferal of funds from one account to another, and also online bill payment. All you need to do is log on, and these forms of ecommerce are right in front of you. Ecommerce is also present at the institutional level – as in, large corporations and financial institutions use the internet to exchange financial data for the facilitation of domestic and international business. When it comes to ecommerce, data integrity and security are very important issues.