History and Evolution of E-commerce

Definition of Electronic Commerce

Electronic Commerce(EC) is the manner in which transactions take place over networks, mostly the Internet. It is the process of electronically buying and selling goods, services and information. Certain EC applications, such as buying and selling stocks and airline tickets on the internet, are growing very rapidly, exceeding non-Internet trades.

EC is not just about buying and selling, it also is about electronically communicating, collaborating and discovering information. EC will have an impact on a significant portion of the world, affecting businesses, professions, and of course, people.

History and Evolution of E-Commerce

Originally, e-commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) in year 1970 which allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. In year 1980s, the development and acceptance of automated teller machine (ATM) and credit cards were the types of e-commerce. However, in 1990s, the Enterprise resource planning system (ERP), data warehousing and data mining were also included in e-commerce. When the Web first became well-known among the general public in 1994, many journalists and pundits forecast e-commerce would soon become a major economic sector. However, it took about four years for security protocols (like HTTPS) to become sufficiently developed and widely deployed. Subsequently, between 1998 and 2000, a substantial number of businesses in the United States and Western Europe developed rudimentary web sites. Recently, the E-commerce was being defined as the process buying and selling over the Internet using electronic payment services.

Timeline

1990 - Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.

1994 - Netscape arrived and providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Scokets Layer.

1995 - Two biggest names in e-commerce are launched which is Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998 - Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.

1999 - Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000 - The dot-com bust.

2003 - Amazon.com had its first year with a full year of profit.

Relater Link:

http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/E-Commerce

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

INTRODUCTION

KB Toys is the second-largest retailer of toys in the United States which consists of approximately 1,300 smaller mall-based toy stores in all 50 states in US, the American Territory of Guam, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Due to their smaller retail space, KB stores do not carry sporting goods, the company is focus on video products, which account for 25 percent of overall sales. The company was purchased in 1996 by Consolidated Stores Corporation, a leading value retailer specializing in toys and closeout merchandise. In 1998, KBkids.com is started to market KB merchandise online.

KBTOYS.COM & ITS SERVICES

KBToys.com is a "click-and-mortar" business which operates more than 1,300 KB Toys retail stores in all 50 states, the American Territory of Guam, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It's one of the few E-commerce ventures that lets customers return items to the brick-and-mortar stores. KBToys.com was officially launched in late June and is less than eight months old, but it attracts millions of visitors and is consistently rated as a top performer. The website for reference is http://www.kbtoys.com. At the website, a shop cart symbol could be found out on the top of the website which enable consumers to place their selected products into it. Besides, order information such as cancel or check an order, returns or exchange could be found on the website too. Consumers can choose to pay their bills through coupons, gift cards, mail-in rebates or paypal. Other than that, birthday club, newsletter, and wishlist can also be signed-up if consumers wish to do so.

Besides selling to individual consumers, KBToys.com is also targeted on business entities by introducing KBTOYS gift card. Gift card is redeemable in any KBTOYS stores and its website. With purchase amount of US$1000.00, a volume discount will be given.

In 1999, KBToys.com received top points from an e-commerce market research firm, the Gomez Advisors, in the categories of customer confidence, overall cost, and bargain shopping. Softletter Wall Street Journal rated the site as the 'best overall' online toy retailer. In a little more than four months online, KBkids.com increased its business more than 400 percent and twice ranked among the five biggest gainers on the NextCard eCommerce Movers index.

WHY KBTOYS.COM IS A SUCCESSFUL E-COMMERCE WEBSITE?

1. The web page is clean, full of attractive graphics, easy-to-use shopping-cart and check out functions which make consumers convenient and comfortable when using the website. The graphics that used are able to attract the eye to products.

2. The website provides an excellent search capabilities which comb through 10,000 products to help customers find what they are seeking. The search engine match the product title with age group, price, short description and a link to more details.

3. The privacy policy that provided by the website securing customers information online remains private. The website use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL 128-bit) encryption to scramble customer personal and credit card information as it travels over the Internet during the checkout process on the web site.

4. KBToys.com make it easier for customers to compare and contrast toys that sold on the website because it is not easy to compare each toys by just looking at multiple toys.

5. The website supplying variety types of products such as toys & games, video games, party supplies, electronics and movies & videos. Moreover, the toys are categorized based on age group such as from 0-12 months till 17+ years old, based on types such as action figures, arts & crafts, outdoor play, science, sport and etc which make customers convenient when selecting toys that suited to their needs.

Useful links:
1. http://www.kbtoys.com
2. http://www.linkedin.com/companies/kb-toys
3. http://www.bizrate.com/merchant/coe__mid--908.html

Self-introduction of FOK WEI SIONG

Hi,my name is Fok Wei Siong , you can call me FOK , but please do not call me wei siong because most people having the same name so i prefer people call me as FOK . Although this is surname, but i like it . I am 23 years old , nothing special for me , I have what almost people had. I come from Malacca where is a place that is nothing special for me. There are some popular foods and places such as satay celup , chicken rice ball , nyonya food and history place, jonker place,etc . My birthday is on 555 , 555 stands for 5th of May in 1985, that sure have some meaning at there to give my friend guess , forgive me about it. I listen to pop , hip-hop and rap songs . Jolin and S.H.E are my favorite artists, I support their albums , which mean I bought their original album instead of pirated. Every afternoon I will go for jogging and play badminton with friend sometimes. I always keep silent when I first time meet or know you, I'll only start to close with my friends after few months and they will start to feel that I am very talkative .

The top 5 websites that I usually click on are Friendster, cinema website, Viwawa, download drama website and Youtube .

Firstly , Friendster can help me to keep contact with my old friends. Besides, I always view their pictures as to update me about what their changes. Therefore, it could help to refresh my impression of them.

Secondly , Cinema website is my second favorite website. As I am enjoys watching movie, those websites could help me to search for movie showing time and latest movie on cinema. My favourite movie is on cinema again on 26th of June 2009. Try to guess what is that? The answer is......Transformer : Revenge of the fallen!!! I am planning to watch this movie because it is really excellent.

Thirdly , Viwawa is a games playing website. Besides, the website also allows me to chat with friends when I am playing games. Those players are not just from Malaysia, but also other countries such as Singapore and Indonesia.

Fourthly, since there are not much entertainment activities around Sungai Long, I always download new dramas and movies from websites that could help me to spend my time. I knew that it is an illegal way to download those dramas from websites but I used to download them since the life here is too boring.

Lastly , Youtube is the source of entertainment where I search for latest musics, videos and funny video clips.

Self introduction:- Lim Beng Hun

I am my own Dream.

Dearest all, my name is Lim Beng Hun. I’m 22 years old. My birthday is on August the 8th. I live in a peaceful town called Taiping or better known as rain town. I love anything that's unique. Anything different is beautiful. I listen to pop, vocal trance and soft music. Soft music is the source of my relaxation. I have a big sensitive heart and tend to put others before myself and I’m a big dreamer and want to always feel alive. I do have a bad impression at the first sight so do not judge before you know me. Many of my friends call me Aarron, Xiao Bai, Beng Hun, Ming Han, and the last one that i like the most is....Haha i won't say because it look so funny . Kelvin , one of my friends like to call me that. Not everyone is perfect so do I. My biggest fear is cockroach but I do have special ability too. Cooking is my ability and not all guys know how to cook.

The top 5 website i usually click on are as follows:

1. www.yahoo.com : I use this website to check my mails from my friends and family which allows me to keep in touch with them by sending some greeting messages.

2. www.soompi.com : This is my only favourite forum that i prefer the most because for some reasons. Do you guys want to know why? Haha, i won't tell you guys, if you want to know more, just visit that website la.

3. www.thestar.com.my : I have to keep myself update on the economy news even if I’m busy. On the other hand, the star online is also the source for me to search information in doing some of the assignment.

4. www.youtube.com : As a student, there is not much entertainment around UTAR. Hence, YouTube is the source of entertainment for me where I usually search for the latest music video to watch and listen.

5. www.friendster.com : This is a place where i adding new friends although some may not be may real friends, but never mind. My main purpose is to adding the most fake friends so that my personal site will be listed as number one. Haha, so funny.

My top five activities are using MSN for chatting, check mails although most of it is forwarded mails, surfing internet to get latest entertainment's news, playing online games and downloading music. That's all about me.

Self introduction - Chee Seng

Hello. My name is Lee Chee Seng who are studying at Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman for my last year which is year three semester one. I am taking Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting. I am turning into 20 years old this year after my birthday in May. On the right hand side is the photo of my friends and me during our vacation at Redang Island. I am the tallest! (when compared with girls. ==!!)

It is my first time to create a blog just for assignment and it is quite weird for me to do so. But since it is required, i'm just do according to rules.(^^") My hobby are chit-chatting, sleeping, singing, surfing net and reading, sometimes.

The most frequent five websites that i used to visit are:

1. www.google.com : Google.com provide me a power search engine which helpful for me to search any information or queries that needed. I almost use those informations in order to complete my assignment. Besides, it is also offer a huge memory of mail box for me to store my large amount of mails.

2. www.hotmail.com : Apart from gmail, I also have an account of hotmail. I used to check my mail that sent by my friends and family daily. I use hotmail to send assignment information to my other group members and some forward message to my friends in order to keep contact with my friends.

3. www.wretch.cc : I have my personal blog at WRETCH which is my little secret place for me to record everything about me when i want. I have made lot of friends through blogging there who are from various country. For instance, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and so on.

4. www.sosot.net : This is a forum that created by my senior of high school, Tsun Jin High School. This forum allows me to update myself with news of my high school. I always visit this website since I can also have some interaction with my junior who are still studying at Tsun Jin High School.

5. www.facebook.com : I visit my Facebook daily not to make friends but to play games. Haha. Since there are a lot of games offered by Facebook that attracting me, I have no interest in making friends already. Haha.

The top five internet avtivities are chat with friends, check my mails, check my blog if there is any new comment dropped by friends, download songs and surfing internet to gain any extra knowledge. That's all about me this boring guy.

Self introduction - Yen Ying

Hello everyone, this is my first time to write “Myself” in my University Life, it is because of the E-commerce assignment. Firstly, my name is Lee Yen Ying and you can call me “Mei Mei” because I have a twin sister who is my elder sister, so all of my friends used to call us as “Jie Jie” and “Mei Mei”. I almost close to 21 years old and I am taking the course of Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) Accounting in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman which is my last year in UTAR. (Wear purple colour shirt is me!! @@)

My hobbies are swimming, playing badminton and online to chat with my friends and to visit some websites. When I have leisure time, I will find my younger sister or mum to play badminton with me. And sometime I will MSN with my secondary friends to keep contact, so my MSN email is yenying2006@hotmail.com (who want to know me, you can add me… hehe^^).

The Top 5 websites that I prefer to visit are:

1. http://www.facebook.com/: I like to visit Facebook because there have many things can play and learn. But, the most activity that I play in Facebook is Pet Society because I have adopt a pet there, so everyday I will login in to take care of her and decorate her living place.


2. http://www.hotmail.com/: I like to visit Hotmail because I need to check mail that sent by my friends everyday. And sometime I will receive important mails from lecturers or tutors, therefore I need to check my mail box often.
   
3. http://www.tom365.com/: This website allows me to download my favorite Taiwanese drama. Although I visit this website once a week, but I also enjoy surfing it because I can download a lot of movies in this page that I prefer.


4. http://www.viwawa.com/: This website enable me to play games when I feel bored in studies or to spend my time if I have leisure time.


5. http://www.haoting.com/: This website can let me listen any songs without any restriction. I could update myself with those latest songs that released.

The top 5 internet activities are same as my top 5 websites’ reason, but the most internet activity is MSN because it can help me to keep contact with my friends. Lastly, I also like blogging in my personal blog.