e-Business and e-Commerce Infrastructure Essay -- Business Finance

E-Commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) can be defined as commercial transactions of goods and services over the internet and other computer networks (Chaudhury & Kuilboer, 2002). It consists of online shopping, online banking and e-learning (Tkacz & Kapczynski, 2009). E-commerce is becoming increasingly popular since the spread of the internet. The e-commerce users are businesses, consumers and government departments (Kessler, 2009). E-commerce is controversial but the advantages of it greatly outweigh the disadvantages. To begin with, e-commerce offers consumers speed and convenience. E-shopping involves a web site that sells goods and/or services without the direct, face to face, contact between the vendor and the customer. This process is easy and only takes a few clicks before the client/customer has bought themself something. Compared to the traditional way of shopping, online shopping is far more convenient. The traditional way of shopping involves driving the car to shopping centers and if the desired item is not there, then driving to further shops. After getting to the desired destination, the customer has to â€Å"fight† for parking space, walk from store to store and aisle to aisle looking for the items desired. After that process, there is a chance the queue for the checkouts are long. Then there is the issue of carrying out the merchandise. This whole shopping process can take hours (Kessler, 2009)! Many people avoid all this hassle nowadays by shopping online in the comfort of th eir own home. According to a study (Entrepreneur, 2003) 72% of online shoppers chose convenience over privacy. In addition, consumers can shop without time limitation with 24 hour access at because the World Wid... ...le PDFCite ArticleFavorite GlobalSchoolnet.org. (1999-2011). http://www.globalschoolnet.org/index.cfm. Handfield, R. (2011). What is Supply Chain Management? The Supply Chain Resource Cooperative http://scm.ncsu.edu/scm-articles/article/what-is-supply-chain-management. Retrieved May 6, 2012 Kessler, M. (2003). â€Å"More shoppers proceed to checkout online.† USA Today. Retrieved May 6, 2012. Malawer, S. S. (2001). Global Governance of E-commerce and Internet Trade: Recent Developments. In World Trade Law. http://www.worldtradelaw.net/articles/malawerecommerce.pdf. Retrieved May 6, 2012. The Daily. September 27, 2010. â€Å"Ecommerce: Shopping on the Internethttp://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily- quotidien/100927/dq100927a-eng.htm. Retrieved May 6, 2012. Tkacz, E. & Kapczynski, A. (2009). Internet - Technical Development and Applications. Boston: MA Springer.