E-Commerce

Electronic business or e-business is a whole new way of doing business over the internet in today's society. In today's ever changing environment, people are shopping more and more online, which has opened up new aspects of money making strategies that businesses have built on. E-business has helped businesses grow, or ultimately loose revenue and play catch up. There are several key aspects in which e-business needs to be conducted. E-business can make, or break a company. This paper will reveal the history, successful companies and their strategies, trends, and the current landscape of e-business.

E-business can be defined as any business process that is empowered by an information system (Wikipedia). This basically states that e-business is typically done through web-based technologies. It includes transactions, order forms, selection of merchandise, warehousing, availability of products, and descriptions of a product.

The history of e-business starts with e-commerce, which is interrelated. With changing technology, comes a new definition of existing words. For example e-commerce was originally defined as the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically through electronic data interchange, which would send electronic commercial documents like invoices or purchase orders electronically (Wikipedia). The new definition of e-commerce is the purchase of goods and services over the World Wide Web through secure servers with e-shopping carts and electronic pay services, such as credit card payment authorization services (Wikipedia). In the early 1990's, when the web was becoming more recognized by the public, many journalist and economists predicted e-commerce to become an economic sector. Once security protocols were in place, a significant number of businesses started developing basic web sites. The majority of the businesses were based in the United States, and Western Europe, but a large number of them disappeared during the dot-com collapse between 2000 and 2001 (Wikipedia).

Although a large number of e-commerce companies disappeared, several survived. For example Amazon.com, who's web site is customer friendly and easy to navigate currently offers 4.7 million, books, audio books, CDs, DVDs, computer games, and more (Amazon.com). I have personally bought books from Amazon. Their site is easy to navigate through and very user friendly. The layout of the web site catches ones eye, and almost make a person look at different products, even if they're not shopping for that product.

Amazon hasn't always been on top though; it started in 1994 as a online book store making a reputable name for itself, until the tech boom collapsed. Amazon had to lay off 13,000 workers in 2001, but recognized a new way to make money (Frey/Cook). Amazon transformed itself from a specialty retailer into an online shopping portal, taking a niche of the market from eBay. This set itself up as an arbitrator between buyer and seller. Amazon started selling products from companies such as Toys "R" Us and Target on its Web site, and added merchandise from smaller retailers (Frey/Cook). Through Amazons' evolving ideas, came the opportunity to compete with eBay through its auctions. Currently the current landscape Amazon.com reaches is on a national and global level. They ship through UPS, and Fed-Ex. I personally know this because I work at UPS and our main account is Amazon.com.

Another example of a dot-com survivor, who added e-commerce capabilities to their web site, is online grocer Webvan, who incorporated two traditional supermarket chains, Albertsons and Safeway. Through Webvan, both e-commerce subsided and gave grocers the chance to order groceries online (Wikipedia). This was an innovative idea the tapped into a new market or niche. Webvan's current landscape is on a national level in the United States. The reason for this is because Albertsons and Safeway are mainly based in America.

On top of Amazon and Webvan, another major player emerged in the market. eBay is one of the most successful e-business web sites to survive the dot-com collapse. eBay's special niche is based on auctioning off goods, new or used. Their site is encompassed on consumers and sellers. Any person can be a seller or a buyer, if the price is right. EBay was also formed in the mid 1990's and survived the dot-com downfall. Today, the eBay community includes more than a hundred million registered members from around the world (eBay). EBay also claims that people spend more time on eBay than any other online site, making it the most popular shopping destination on the Internet. This shows eBay's unique niche has captivated the e-business strategy making it one of the leading e-business sites on the World Wide Web. I personally have used eBay for shopping for car parts. It is a user friendly site that can give a person the best prices for what he or she is looking for. EBay also offers a variety of products, such as collectibles like trading cards, antiques, dolls, and houseware, to practical items like used cars, clothing, books and CDs, and electronics. Buyers have the option to purchase items in an auction-style format or items can be purchased at a fixed price through a feature called Buy It Now (eBay). The current landscape of eBay is laid out on a national and global level. EBay currently has local sites that serve twenty five countries from Australia to the Philippines.

An added key player in the e-business category is IBM. In fact Lou Gerstner, IBM's CEO from 1993-2002, coined the term electronic business. This sets IBM apart from other businesses because they were one of the first to recognize how big e-commerce or business was going to be. Before Gerstner was hired as CEO, IBM was a computer company