Very often we hear people saying there is an abundance of
opportunities for online business because e-commerce is a huge industry!
How true this statement is!
In a matter of few years, the
Internet has consolidated itself as a very powerful platform that has
changed the way we do business, and the way we communicate. The
Internet, as no other medium, has given an international or, if you
prefer, a "Globalized" dimension to the world. It is the universal
source of information.
Unless you have been living under a rock
for the last few years, you have probably heard about e-commerce, and
you have probably heard about it from several different angles. You may
have heard about all of the companies that offer e-commerce through
their TV and radio ads, or maybe you've read news articles about the
shift to e-commerce, or the huge valuations that some Internet companies
get in the stock market, even when they don't make a profit, or you may
have purchased something personally on the web, so you have had a
direct experience with e-commerce.
The Internet is actually the
most democratic of all the mass media. With a very low investment,
anyone can have a web page on the Internet. This way almost any business
can reach a very large market, fast and economically, regardless of its
size or location. With a very low investment almost anybody who can
read, and write can have access to the millions of people "online".
Still,
you may feel like you don't understand e-commerce at all. What is all
the hype about? Why the huge valuations? And most importantly, is there a
way for you to participate? If you have questions like these, then this
article will help out by exposing you to the lucrative world of
e-commerce.
E-commerce
- E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. In practice, this term and a newer term, e-business, are often used interchangeably.
- E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. In practice, this term and a newer term, e-business, are often used interchangeably.
Before we get into a complete discussion of
e-commerce, it is helpful to have a good mental image of plain old
commerce first. If you understand commerce, then e-commerce is an easy
extension.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives a few definitions of commerce:
1: social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments
1: social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions, or sentiments
2: the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place
3: sexual intercourse
We
tend to be interested in the second definition, but that third one is
interesting and unexpected -- maybe that's what all of the hype is
about?
You can see that from this perspective, commerce is a
fairly simple concept. Commerce is, quite simply, the exchange of goods
and services, usually for money. We see commerce all around us in
millions of different forms. The mere fact that you are reading this
article you are participating in commerce. In the same way, if you were
selling watches out of a trench coat on the street of New York, you are
participating in commerce from a different angle. If you go to work each
day for a company that produces a product, or service that is yet
another link in the chain of commerce, all of commerce at its simplest
level relies on buyers, and sellers.
When you get down to the
actual elements of commerce and commercial transactions, things get
slightly more complicated because you have to deal with the details.
However, these details boil down to a finite number of steps.
