E-Commerce (SOT

300A)
GIMPA – C-BScOC/BScPM/BScPR
2018 First Semester
GIMPA
Ghana Institute of Management and
Public Administration
Welcome!
• Class: : C-BScOC/BScPM/BScPR
• Course: : E-Commerce (SOT 300A)
• Name of Lecturer : Festus Obeng Sefa
• Specialisation  Dip. Data Processing – KNUST
 BSc. Computer Science – KNUST
 MSc. MIT, Computer Science (ABT) – KNUST
 M.A. Democracy, Governance, Law & Development (UCC)
 MPHIL ; Technology Management (IDTM-KNUST)
 PHD (ABD); Technology Management (IDTM-KNUST)

• E-mail : obengsefa@gmail.com
• Tel : 026 466 3980
Course :
• Course name: E-Commerce
• Description: the course will interrogate into the theoretical and applied aspects of E-Commerce including;
– Introduction to E-Commerce
– Internet Business Models
– Developing an E-Commerce Strategy
– Technology Focus
– Service Focus
– Market and Brand Focus
– Business Technologies
– Internet Rollout Strategy
– E-Commerce Security Technologies and Processes
– Ethical and legal Issues in E-Commerce
– Creation of personal E-Commerce Sites
E - Commerce
• One of the greatest derivatives of electronics is undeniably the development
of artificial intelligence, electronic memory and real time communication.
• Electronic Commerce: „ Involves digitally enabled commercial transactions
between and among organizations and individuals.
– Digitally enabled transactions include all transactions mediated by digital technology,
e.g., over the Internet and the Web.
– Commercial transactions involve the exchange of value (money) across organizational or
individual boundaries in return for products or services
E - Commerce
It pertains to “any form of business transaction in which the parties interact
electronically rather than by physical exchanges or direct physical contact .E-
commerce employs the use of the internet as its backbone to the exchange of
goods, services or /and value.
• One natural disposition of humanity is to ensure its own survival, compete and
increase its relative value.
• Consequently humanity has the tendency of exchanging goods and services
available to him/her for something else that is of relatively higher value.
• Hence once the internet made itself available to humanity it became a product
and service both to be commercialised and a tool to enhance commercialisation.
History of E-Commerce
• Thus philosophically it is not erroneous to assert that E-commerce is as old as
the ‘E’ itself
• However structured application of E-commerce has a time line as follows;
– 1971 or 1972: The ARPANET is used to arrange a cannabis sale between students at the
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
later described as "the seminal act of e-commerce" in John Markoff's book What the
Dormouse Said.
– 1979: Michael Aldrich demonstrates the first online shopping system.
– 1981: Thomson Holidays UK is the first business-to-business online shopping system to be
installed.
– 1982: Minitel was introduced nationwide in France by France Télécom and used for online
ordering.
History of E-Commerce
– 1983: California State Assembly holds first hearing on "electronic commerce" in Volcano, California.[4]
Testifying are CPUC, MCI Mail, Prodigy, CompuServe, Volcano Telephone, and Pacific Telesis. (Not
permitted to testify is Quantum Technology, later to become AOL.)
– 1984: Gateshead SIS/Tesco is first B2C online shopping system and Mrs Snowball, 72, is the first online
home shopper
– 1984: In April 1984, CompuServe launches the Electronic Mall in the USA and Canada. It is the first
comprehensive electronic commerce service.
– 1989: In May 1989, Sequoia Data Corp. Introduced Compumarket The first internet based system for e-
commerce. Sellers and buyers could post items for sale and buyers could search the database and make
purchases with a credit card.
– 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.
– 1992: Book Stacks Unlimited in Cleveland opens a commercial sales website (www.books.com) selling
books online with credit card processing.
– 1993: Paget Press releases edition No. 3 of the first[citation needed] app store, The Electronic AppWrapper
– 1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Netscape 1.0 is
introduced in late 1994 with SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
History of E-Commerce
– 1994: Ipswitch IMail Server becomes the first software available online for sale and immediate download via a
partnership between Ipswitch, Inc. and OpenMarket.
– 1994: "Ten Summoner's Tales" by Sting becomes the first secure online purchase through NetMarket.
– 1995: The US National Science Foundation lifts its former strict prohibition of commercial enterprise on the Internet.
– 1995: Thursday 27 April 1995, the purchase of a book by Paul Stanfield, Product Manager for CompuServe UK,
from W H Smith's shop within CompuServe's UK Shopping Centre is the UK's first national online shopping service
secure transaction. The shopping service at launch featured W H Smith, Tesco, Virgin Megastores/Our Price, Great
Universal Stores (GUS), Interflora, Dixons Retail, Past Times, PC World (retailer) and Innovations.
– 1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24-hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio
HK and NetRadio start broadcasting. eBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
– 1996: IndiaMART B2B marketplace established in India.
– 1996: ECPlaza B2B marketplace established in Korea.
– 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
– 1999: Alibaba Group is established in China. Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to eCompanies, which was
purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster launches. ATG Stores launches to
sell decorative items for the home online.
– 2000: Complete Idiot's Guide to E-commerce released on Amazon
History of E-Commerce
– 2000: The dot-com bust.
– 2001: Alibaba.com achieved profitability in December 2001.
– 2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Niche retail companies Wayfair and NetShops are founded with the concept of selling
products through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.
– 2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
– 2003: Bossgoo B2B marketplace established in China.
– 2004: DHgate.com, China's first online b2b transaction platform, is established, forcing other b2b sites to move away from the
"yellow pages" model.
– 2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million.
– 2009: Zappos.com acquired by Amazon.com for $928 million. Retail Convergence, operator of private sale website RueLaLa.com,
acquired by GSI Commerce for $180 million, plus up to $170 million in earn-out payments based on performance through 2012.
– 2010: Groupon reportedly rejects a $6 billion offer from Google. Instead, the group buying websites went ahead with an IPO on 4
November 2011. It was the largest IPO since Google.
– 2014: Overstock.com processes over $1 million in Bitcoin sales. India's e-commerce industry is estimated to have grown more
than 30% from 2012 to $12.6 billion in 2013. US eCommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $294 billion, an increase
of 12 percent over 2013 and 9% of all retail sales. Alibaba Group has the largest Initial public offering ever, worth $25 billion.
– 2015: Amazon.com accounts for more than half of all ecommerce growth,[24] selling almost 500 Million SKU's in the US.
• Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce,
electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing,
online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory
management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern
electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part
of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such
as e-mail. (indicate its interventions)
• The internet provides a platform for several soft services of great value for
money. (examples)
Scope of E-Commerce
• The Internet, Intranets, and extranets provide vital electronic commerce links between
the components of a business and its customers, suppliers, and other business
partners. 
– Internet: The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists
of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by
a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an
extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents
and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.
– Intranet: An intranet is a private network that is contained within an enterprise. It may consist of
many interlinked local area networks and also use leased lines in the wide area network. Typically,
an intranet includes connections through one or more gateway computers to the outside Internet.
The main purpose of an intranet is to share company information and computing resources among
employees. An intranet can also be used to facilitate working in groups and for teleconferences.
– Extranet: An extranet is a controlled private network that allows access to partners,
vendors and suppliers or an authorized set of customers – normally to a subset of the
information accessible from an organization's intranet. An extranet is similar to a DMZ in
that it provides access to needed services for authorised parties, without granting access
to an organization's entire network. An extranet is a private network organization.
– WWW: The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an information space
where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators
(URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet.[1] English
scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web
browser computer program in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland.[2][3] The
Web browser was released outside of CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions
starting in January 1991 and to the general public on the Internet in August 1991.
• This allows companies to engage in three basic categories of electronic commerce
applications:
– Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-Commerce
– Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Commerce
– Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) e-Commerce

• Online shopping has grown exponentially both for major retailers and small
businesses and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their "brick and
mortar" presence to serve a larger market or even sell goods and services entirely
online. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply
chains across entire industries.
Scope cont
• Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-Commerce
• In this form of electronic commerce, businesses must develop attractive
electronic marketplaces to entice and sell products and services to customers. 
• Companies may offer:
– e-commerce websites that provide virtual store fronts and multimedia catalogs.
–  Interactive order processing
– Secure electronic payment systems
– Online customer support
Scope cont
– Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Commerce

• This category of electronic commerce involves both electronic business

marketplaces and direct market links between businesses.
• Companies may offer:
– Secure Internet or extranet e-commerce websites for their business customers and
suppliers.
– Electronic data interchange (EDI) via the Internet or extranets for computer-to-computer
exchange of e-commerce documents with their larger business customers and suppliers.
– B2B e-commerce portals that provide auction and exchange markets for businesses
Scope cont
Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) e-Commerce

• Successes of online auctions like e-Bay, allow consumers (and businesses) to buy

and sell with each other in an auction process at an auction website.

• Online consumer or business auctions are an important e-commerce alternative for

B2C or B2B e-commerce.

• Electronic personal advertising of products or services to buy or sell by consumers

at electronic newspaper sites, consumer e-commerce portals, or personal websites is
an important form of C2C e-commerce
There are nine essential e-commerce processes
required
• Access control and security
• Profiling and personalizing
• Search management
• Content management
• Catalog management
• Payment
• Workflow management
• Event notification
• Collaboration and trading
Essential e-commerce process
There are nine essential e-commerce processes
required cont.
• Access control and security
– e-commerce processes must establish mutual trust and secure access between the parties
in an e-commerce transaction by:
– authenticating users
– authorizing access
– and enforcing security features.
• Profiling and personalizing
– Profiling processes gather data on an individual and their website behavior and choices
– build electronic profiles of your characteristics and preferences.
–  User profiles are developed using profiling tools such as
– user registration
–  cookie files
– website behavior tracking software
– user feedback
• Search management
– Efficient and effective search processes provides a top e-commerce website capability
that helps customers find the specific product or service they want to buy.
• Content and catalog management
– A software that helps e-commerce companies
– Develop
– generate
– deliver
– update
– archive text data
– and multimedia information at e-commerce websites.
– e-commerce content frequently takes the form of multimedia catalogs of product information. 
• Payment
– Payments for the products and services purchased are an obvious and vital step in the
electronic commerce transaction process.
– Payment must be flexible and easy but  security issues should involved.
• Workflow management
– e-business workflow systems help employees electronically collaborate to accomplish
structured work tasks within knowledge-based business processes. 
– The workflow model expresses the predefined sets of
– business rules
– roles of stakeholders
authorization requirements
–  routing alternatives
– databases used
– and sequence of tasks required for each e-commerce process.
Event notification
• Most e-commerce applications are event-driven systems that respond to a
multitude of events. 
• Event notification processes play an important role in e-commerce systems,
since customers, suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders must be
notified of all events that might affect their status in a transaction
• Collaboration and trading
– This category of e-commerce processes are those that support the vital collaboration
arrangements and
– trading services needed by 
– customers
– Suppliers
– and other stakeholders to accomplish e-commerce transactions
Readings
E-commerce
business. technology. society.
Kenneth C. Laudon
Carol Guercio Traver
MK, Euro Info Correspondence Centre (Belgrade, Serbia), “E-commerce-Factor
of Economic Growth;” available from
http://www.eicc.co.yu/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsstart3end5;
 GIMPA
Ghana Institute of
Management and Public
Administration

End of lecture 1