E-commerce is a business transactions directed online. It can also be referred as whatever you buy and sell via internet, you are engaged in e-commerce. In 1994, the first true e-commerce transaction was conducted by Phil Branden Berger of Philadelphia using his credit card via internet. It was the first time, where an encrypted technology was used to make a purchase. Since then, e-commerce has developed significantly. After that came the e-commerce giants like Amazon and EBay. Amazon started working as a book-shipping business in Jeff Bezos’ carport in 1995. EBay, which empowers shoppers to sell to each other on the web, presented online auction in 1995 and detonated with the 1997 Beanie Babies frenzy. (Rivera , 2017)
Like any advanced innovation or customer based purchasing market, ecommerce has developed throughout the years. As cell phones turned out to be better known, mobile business has turned into its own particular market. With the rise of such sites as Facebook and Pinterest, social media has turned into an essential platform of ecommerce. Starting at 2014, Facebook drove 85 percent of online social media-originating sales on e-commerce platform.
The Internet and e-commerce innovations are considerably more rich and intense than past innovation technologies like radio, TV, and the phone. Its special features of the Internet and Web as a business medium is the key difference in E-commerce. Some of the key features are explained below. Ubiquity (Internet/Web innovation accessible all around like work, home, and so on, anytime), Global reach (The innovation comes to reach over national boundaries, around Earth), Universal standards (One set of technology standards i.e. Internet standards), Richness (Supports video, sound, and instant messages), Interactivity (The innovation works through cooperation with the client), Information density (Large increments in data density i.e. the aggregate sum and nature of data accessible to all market members), Social Technology: User content generation and social networking (The innovation advances client content generation and social networking) and finally, Personalization/Customization (Technology permits modification of messages and goods). (Laudon & Laudon, 2014)
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The key concepts in E-commerce are Digital markets and Digital goods. Digital goods are the merchandise that can be delivered over a digital network. The internet has changed the manner in which organizations conduct business and expanded their global reach. Information asymmetry, Menu costs, Dynamic pricing and Disintermediation are key components describing the key aspects in e-commerce. E-commerce can classifies into three major categories i.e. Business-to-consumer (B2C), Business-to-business (B2B) and Consumer-to-consumer (C2C). The utilization of handheld remote devices for purchasing products and services from any area is called mobile commerce or m-commerce. Both B2B and B2C e-commerce transactions can happen utilizing m-commerce innovation.
These classifications has created conditions for entirely now business models to appear like portal, e-teller, content provider, transaction broker, market creator, service provider and community providers. There are different types e-commerce revenue models to identify how the company earns revenue, generate profits and product superior ROI. Some of the revenue models are advertising (A site produces revenue by pulling in a substantial group of audience who would then be able to be presented to an advertisements), sales (Gets revenue from selling products/data/services like Amazon), subscription (product or services is free, yet charged for premium features), free/freemium (Fees from subscribers in return for access to content/services like eHarmony), transaction fee (Fees or commissions for empowering an transaction like eBay and E-Trade) and affiliate (Redirect business to a ‘member’, gets a referral fee or percentage of revenue from resulting sales). (Laudon & Laudon, 2014)
Today’s market is well known for its unique nature and customer oriented strategies. Social networking and the wisdom of crowds are the fastest growing areas in e-commerce. Wisdom of Crowd is the process in which the collective opinions of a group of individuals are considered rather than a solitary expert. Exclusive number of individuals can make better choices about topics and products than a solitary individual. It can also be called as crowdsourcing. The wisdom of crowds can also be utilized in the form of prediction markets. Internet has made long tail marketing possible. It gave us an ability to reach out to larger audience inexpensively. In the past, it would be really expensive. Behavioral targeting is the trending e-commerce methods used by the marketers. This will help track online behavior of individuals on thousands of websites. Location based services and applications includes Geosocial services, Geoadvertising services and Geoinformation services. (Laudon & Laudon, 2014)
2017 report suggests, top 1000 online retailers in North America had a terrific year. The online sale collectively increased to 18.5% from 5.1% which was a decade ago in 2007. It excludes the purchase of cars and fuel which is rarely done online (Davis , 2018). It is anything but difficult to conclude from this information that online retailers are thriving and every other person, especially vendors that work physical stores, are in a bad position. But, the reality is more mind boggling. Technology is spreading this gigantic tide of good fortunes.
A long way from the days when it was only the establishment of e-commerce, technology today is transforming the business into what may be the pinnacle of modern-day retailing. Even though e-commerce is the trending retail market, but the actual shopping experience is gained by walking into a retail store and interacting with the products and services (Pando, 2018). The future of marketing is definitely the integration of VR and augmented reality (AR). It can enable clients to visualize themselves using products instantly and gives an extraordinary method to engage the client.
