At this time and age there is no case for you not to have heard of e-commerce. Let’s begin with a short and understandable definition of e-commerce. This form of commerce contains the use of the internet, the World Wide Web and browsing applications and programs of mobile and fixed devices for commercial transactions. More officially, it concerns commercial transactions with digital abilities which are conducted among organizations and individuals and among organizations exclusively as well.
E-commerce appeared in the middle of the 90s. Until 2000 it remained stable without significant amount of money invested in it. From 2000 to 2010 there was an important rise since around 200 billion dollars were invested for this purpose. And here comes the period from 2010 until today. During these years e-commerce skyrocketed. The only fact that needs to be mentioned is that in 2020 the money spent in the field of e-commerce reached almost 800 billion dollars. Of course, the pandemic of coronavirus helped e-commerce to grow rapidly but it is certain that e-commerce would reach this level without it, maybe later.
At this point it is worth mentioning the difference between e-commerce and e-business. E-business, which is different from e-commerce, means the ability to conduct transactions and processes within a company digitally by utilizing information systems which are under the control of the company. E- business does not always include commercial transactions which take place out of the company. Some examples of those companies are Twitter, Paypal, Facebook etc.
After stressing the difference between e-commerce and e-business it is time to dive into e-commerce analyze its different forms. First of all, we have the business aspect which contains all the forms of e-commerce. Next comes the technology aspect of e-commerce which is called m-commerce and it was created due to the spectacular entrance of portability platform in the field of e-commerce. Another aspect is the one of society which is called social commerce and it contains increased social interaction and sharing.
In addition, it is an urgent necessity to mention some unique attributes of e-commerce:
- Ubiquity (e-commerce, m-commerce, etc.)
- International scope (delivery to other countries)
- International standards (html, css, online security & encryption, etc.)
- Information redundancy (text, images, videos, etc.)
- Interactivity (live chat)
- Information density (content)
- Personalization and adaptation (customization, user accounts)
- Social technology (enables user interface, communication, and interface)
Now it is vital to say that e-commerce is separated into 4 categories:
- E-commerce 2Β, B2C, B2G, C2C, etc.
- E-commerce for portable devices (m-commerce)
- Social e-commerce (social media)
- Location-based e-commerce (Location-Based Services)
After this comprehensive analysis we can safely say that e-commerce is a field which is already in the spotlight and will remain there for many years. More and more businesses decide to invest in this discipline. As it was mentioned previously, covid-19 contributed to the development of e-commerce significantly. The only thing we need to do is to monitor the course of this phenomenon very carefully and take advantage of it.
