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In 21st Century in which we all are living technology is become a necessity and
therefore, its application in business and commerce are not a matter of choice but a
matter of compulsion. This is why the global competition could be faced with the five vital
components namely quality, cost, convenience, communication and time could be
attainable if we make transactions electronically. These five facets are also of paramount
significance when we have to face stiff and throat cutting competition.
The seeds of the trends, issues and challenges now taking hold in Ecommerce
and mobile commerce were infused or injected into business during early days, long
before the shakeout began. Today, as the dust settles, are those trends, issues and
challenges have come up to show clearly toward the future of Ecommerce transforming
into Mobile Commerce. The emerging trends, issues and challenges in Ecommerce
include- multi-channel retailing; more satisfied users; users doing own things; losing out
the mid-size E-tailer; losing human relations; and more profits.
Key Words:
INTRODUCTION
Due to continued technological innovations, the world had seen drastic changes in
almost every sphere of life. The advent of Internet-based electronic commerce over the
past decade or so has given businesses an unprecedented marketing opportunity. Brick
and mortar businesses can find it difficult to compete with web-based businesses
because the latter usually have lower operating costs and greater flexibility
(www.investopedia.com; 2011).As the Internet-using population has grown, so too has
the potential market size for any business that sets up a shop on the Web (Steinfield, C.;
2002).
With the advent of each new day, new technologies were developed in the wake
to make life easier. This development resulted in the transformation of the world from e-
commerce to m-commerce. The reasons for these developments can be traced back
mainly to technology innovations, like faster data transmission technologies and better
mobile devices equipped with improved computing capacity, enhanced data storage and
better user-interface. Some other factors, like the increasing penetration of society by
mobile phones and the integration of world economies have also increased the need for
mobility. The high availability of mobile Introduction phones, which is greater than that of
computers in most countries, is leading to concepts of new, innovative mobile services,
collectively described as m-commerce.
TRADITIONAL COMMERCE
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customers face-to-face in an office or store that the business owns or rents. Henceforth,
all the components in traditional commerce are physical.
The activities which most businesses engage in as they conduct commerce are
called business processes. Classic business processes include:
E-COMMERCE
Commerce has a long tradition of profiting from innovative systems and tools. As
technologies emerge, successful businesses are quick to identify developing
opportunities and expand their commercial capabilities. Conducting commerce
electronically is no different. For many businesses, new technologies that digitally
exchange text and monetary information are effective tools to serve traditional business
goals of streamlining services, developing new markets, and creating innovative
business opportunities. In addition, they offer the potential to develop types of services
that are so innovative and distinct from tradition that they define a new type of
commerce. Appropriately named, electronic commerce (E-Commerce) is the synthesis of
traditional business practices with computer, information and communication
technologies. (www.orlandowebdevelopment.com, 2011)
Although there are many definitions and explanations of e-commerce, the following
definition provides a clear distinction.
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From the analysis of the definition, we may put that E-Commerce is a confluence of
business operations with electronic and network technologies. Telephony and non-
networked technologies such as CD-ROM media may integrate into operations, but the
core of E-Commerce is network technologies and especially open networks such as the
Internet (www.orlandowebdevelopment.com, 2011). E-commerce means processing of
information using one digital application (EDI or Internet) and only a few quick steps.
(www.thalys.gr, 2011)
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From this discussion we may conclude that an e-business model must have following
essentials:
Types of E-Commerce:
• business-to-business (B2B);
• business-to-consumer (B2C);
• business-to-government (B2G);
• consumer-to-consumer (C2C);and
B2B E-Commerce:
B2C e-commerce:
It is the second largest and the earliest form of e-commerce. Its origins can be
traced to online retailing (or e-tailing). Thus, the more common B2C business models are
the online retailing companies such as Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Beyond.com,
Barnes and Noble and Toys Rus. Other B2C examples involving information goods are
E-Trade and Travelocity. (Andam, Z.R.; 2003)
C2C E-Commerce:
They want from among multiple suppliers, it perhaps has the greatest potential for
developing new markets.
• peer-to-peer systems, such as the Napster model (a protocol for sharing files
between users used by chat forums similar to IRC) and other file exchange and
later money exchange models; and later money exchange models; and
• classified ads at portal sites such as Excite Classifieds and eWanted (an
interactive, online marketplace where buyers and sellers can negotiate and
which features “Buyer Leads & Want Ads”). (Andam, Z.R.; 2003)
B2G E-Commerce:
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B2C ecommerce.
Table 2: Difference between E-commerce and Traditional commerce (on the basis of
Action Involved)
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electronic)
Source: www.thalys.gr , 2011; Positioning Towards Customer and Supplier; Accessed on;
October 10, 2011. PP-8-9.
http://www.thalys.gr/pagesuk/technicalissues/internet/e-
commerce/e_commerce_e_commerce_p9.htm
The use of networks to exchange money and transfers began in the late 1950s
with the development of electronic fund transfers (EFTs). EFTs, or wire transfers, was the
electronic transmission of account information over private communication networks.
Such activity may be thought of as electronic trading, since businesses and individuals
could update accounts and trade via EFTs.
In the late 1960s, electronic data interchange was used to reduce the amount of
time and effort in putting data such as invoices, purchase orders and bills. EDI allowed
for the exchange of information and the execution of electronic transactions between
businesses, typically in the form of electronic purchase orders and invoices. Businesses
that engage in EDI are referred to as Trading Partners. Due to the high implementation
costs only government agencies and large corporations were able to enjoy this
technological benefit. (www.londoninternational.ac.uk, 2011)
It wasn’t until 1994 that e-commerce (as we know it today) really began to
accelerate with the introduction of security protocols and high speed internet connections
such as DSL, allowing for much faster connection speeds and faster online transaction
capability. Industry “experts” predicted explosive growth in e-commerce related
businesses.
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In response to these expert opinions, between 1998 and 2000, a substantial number of
businesses in Western Europe and the United States built out their first rudimentary e-
commerce websites. (sellitontheweb.com, 2011)
However, many of these companies went bust, due to not having sufficiently
robust revenue models to generate enough income to sustain their business. As more
and more businesses competed for a fixed number of good ideas, internet businesses
became over-valued and many bad ideas were also implemented. By 2000, the internet
business had started to see a downturn. Thousands of businesses went bust as lack of
advertising revenue meant they could not sustain their early promise.
(www.londoninternational.ac.uk, 2011)
The dot-com collapse raised the concerns, and seeing its innumerable benefits,
investigations were made for finding the reasons for such an incidence. These
investigations came up with following serious flaws made while adopting the technology:
• It was found that e-commerce was limited to a large degree to US businesses and
was not global in nature. (www.londoninternational.ac.uk, 2011)
• Many of the original e-commerce businesses were started with outside investor
money-backing good ideas. They focused entirely on how internet could be used
to refine business processes and reduce transaction costs and less care was
taken regarding developing understanding on how these businesses could
produce revenue.
• Email has also been associated with the ever increasing amounts of spam and
other unsolicited content. The expected reliance on advertising as a revenue
source was a major mistake by many e-businesses. The lack of alternative
revenue models or an understanding of what online advertising actually yielded in
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terms of returns meant that many e-businesses were left with no revenue
streams. (www.londoninternational.ac.uk, 2011)
In an effort to overcome the flaws of the first wave, and to ensure achievements of
new heights, the key characteristics of the second wave of e-commerce can be
understood to be based on internationalization and widening participation.
• Own funds and capital was mainly used for establishing online businesses.
• Great effort and care is taken in devising revenue models and identifying
appropriate revenue streams. There is an emphasis not on who will supply us with
revenue, but how are we going to generate revenue.
There has been an explosion in the number of internet users worldwide, and it is fair
to say that most countries in the world now have internet access, if not always at the
same level of quality. Availability of broadband connections has ensured access to digital
content such as video and music can be sold and exchanged online. Even greater
emphasis has been put on the use of customised email strategies. Businesses now use
email for formulating deep relationships with consumers and ensuring that consumers
are contacted in a timely manner.
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The main differences between the first and second waves of e-commerce are
summarized in the table below.
Various applications of e-commerce are continually affecting trends and prospects for
business over the Internet, including e-banking, e-tailing and online publishing/online
retailing.
In most developing countries, the payment schemes available for online transactions are
the following:
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In addition, there are other related reasons and unresolved issues, such as
tax evasion, privacy and anonymity, fraud adjudication, and legal liability on credit
cards. In many countries, cash is preferred not only for security reasons but also
because of a desire for anonymity on the part of those engaged in tax evasion or
those who simply do not want others to know where they are spending their
money. Others worry that there is lack of legal protection against fraud (i.e., there
is no provision for adjudicating fraud and there may be no legal limit on liability,
say, for a lost or stolen credit card). It is necessary to distinguish these concerns
from the general security concerns (i.e., transaction privacy, protection and
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M-COMMERCE
As content delivery over wireless devices becomes faster, more secure, and scalable,
the novel inventions led the generations into the new era of mobile-commerce (m-
commerce), and some believe that m-commerce will surpass wire-line e-commerce as
the method of choice for digital commerce transactions. This may well be true for the
Asia-Pacific where there are more mobile phone users than there are Internet users.
Mobile Commerce, is the ability to conduct commerce using a mobile device, such as a
mobile phone, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a smart-phone, or other emerging
mobile equipment (en.wikipedia.org). To put in simple words, M-commerce (mobile
commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless technology,
i.e., hand-held devices such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Japan is seen as a global leader in m-commerce. (Nagaraju, 2010)
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Feature of M-Commerce:
1) Ubiquity- It means that the users can avail of services and carry out transactions
largely independent of his current geographic location.
3) Localisation- Location based services such as GPS, allow companies to offer goods
and services to the user specific to his current location.
4) Instant Connectivity- This feature brings convenience to the user, due to introduction
of services like GPRS which keeps users always in touch and connected.
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Simple
Authentication
Devices like SIM,
PIN are effective
M-Commerce
Localisation Immediacy
Localised Content Services available
and Services anytime
History of M-Commerce:
Mobile commerce was born in 1997 when the first two mobile-phones enabled Coca
Cola vending machines were installed in the Helsinki area in Finland. The machines
accepted payment via SMS text messages. The first mobile phone-based banking
service was launched in 1997 by Merita Bank of Finland, also using SMS. A major leap
took place when two major national commercial platforms for mobile commerce were
launched in 1999. These included Smart Money in the Philippines, and NTT DoCoMo's i-
Mode Internet service in Japan.
Mobile-commerce-related services spread rapidly in early 2000. Norway launched mobile
parking payments. Austria offered train ticketing via mobile device. Japan offered mobile
purchases of airline tickets.
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• Mobile ticketing
• Location-based services
• Information services
• Mobile banking
• Mobile brokerage
• Auctions
• Mobile Browsing
● Financial services, including mobile banking (when customers use their hand-held
devices to access their accounts and pay their bills), as well as brokerage services (in
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which stock quotes can be displayed and trading conducted from the same handheld
device);
● Telecommunications, in which service changes, bill payment and account reviews can
all be conducted from the same handheld device;
● Service/retail, as consumers are given the ability to place and pay for orders on-the-fly;
and
● Information services, which include the delivery of entertainment, financial news, sports
figures and traffic updates to a single mobile device.
(searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com, 2011)
Present Scenario:
According to a survey made by Informa (Nov 2007), there are currently over 3 billion
mobile phones worldwide, that is, approximately 40% of the world’s population currently
carries a mobile phone. The chart below puts this figure in the context of other major
technologies. Mobile phone adoption continues to grow. In many developed countries
mobile phone penetration is well above 90%, so saying “everyone has a mobile phone’
has become a reality.
Source: Mobile Commerce: Opportunities and challenges, A GS1 Mobile Com White
Paper.February 2008 Edition. PAGE-10.
Throughout the 1990s the introduction of the internet and e-commerce reshaped
the way that businesses do business and the way that consumers interact with
businesses. Businesses took the opportunity to automate many processes that before
would have been handled manually, from ordering to customer service. One clear
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example is the way that spending on advertising has begun to shift from traditional off-
line media to online and digital media as advertisers have seen an opportunity to better
connect with their target audience. IBM forecasts 22% growth in mobile, digital and
interactive advertising formats between 2006 and 2010 against 4% growth in traditional
advertising formats.
Like any emerging market, there are many propositions about how to use this
technology. Some organizations adopt an aggressive policy and want to get something
moving as fast as possible whilst others adopt a wait-and-see approach. As a result,
proprietary solutions are developed that make integration with existing systems or by
multiple partners complex and costly. At the same time, multiple solutions create a
complex landscape for businesses and consumers alike - making it difficult to choose
which solution to use.
Many more people have access to a mobile phone that to a computers and this
means that m-commerce has the opportunity to connect not just big businesses but also
small business and consumers on a massive scale. In this sense, mobile phones have
the potential to bridge the digital divide and allow organizations and individuals to reach
out to one another more easily than ever before. We’re moving into a world where digital
goods are becoming as important as physical goods. Due to the internet, value is
created not just by goods themselves but by the exchanges of those goods.
Future Categories:
In the future other categories will come to light, mirroring technologies just now
gaining steam on the internet. Potentially, peer to peer networks will develop in the
wireless world,
Although no such technology exists today. For instance, going back to the vending
machine example, what if vending machines in a certain area, say a college campus,
could talk to each other in a peer to peer fashion. When a machine runs out of a certain
type of product, and a user shows up and requests that product, the machine can refer
the user to the closest machine which does have the product in stock. Possibly even
forwarding the money already entered to the new machine. This is just one example of
the many technologies, most not yet even thought of, which will undoubtedly develop
under the umbrella of m-Commerce. (Hunter, J.L.; 2002)
CONCLUSION:
From the above discussion we can easily put-forth that commerce has gone
through revolutionary changes to keep pace with changing world. In this wake, it has
traveled phase of traditional commerce to e-commerce. E-commerce had played game
changing role for businesses around the world. Albeit, having some drawbacks, it had
generated enormous opportunities for businesses to accelerate upon others. Even, it
opened the path for future technological development possibilities for the businesses for
ensuring easy access to customers. This possibility and innovations in technology led to
the emergence of a recent phenomenon - “m-commerce”. Innovation in mobile market
had made it all possible. However, with it had aroused certain concerns regarding its use
and security. Seeing the enormous opportunities in this field, it is required that the
initiatives should be carefully framed out keeping in mind all possible loopholes that may
arise in future, to escape it from any failures.
REFERENCES:
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Andam, Z.R. (2003, May); E-Commerce and E-Business; ASEAN Task FORCE. Undp-
apdip. P-7
Ibid. P10-12.
Ibid. PP-12-13.
Ibid. P-13.
Ibid. PP-13-15.
Ibid. P-20.
Ibid. P-21.
Ibid. P-31.
Ibid. P-32.
GS1 Mobile Com, 2008; Mobile Commerce: opportunities and challenges; A GS1 Mobile
Com White Paper. February 2008 Edition. PP-12-13.
Hunter, J.L., (2002, April 9); m-Commerce: Reality Behind the Hype.
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Tiwari, R., Buse, S. Herstatt (2008); From Electronic to Mobile Commerce: Opportunities
through technology convergence for business services; CACCI Journal, Vol. 1, 2008. PP
1-2.
www.investopedia.com (2011); Brick And Mortar. Accessed on; October 10, 2011.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brickandmortar.asp#axzz1aLz3MXjf
Ibid. P-9.
Ibid. P-11.
Ibid. P-13.
Ibid. P-8.
http://www.thalys.gr/pagesuk/technicalissues/internet/e-
commerce/e_commerce_e_commerce_p8.htm
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