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Socio-Economic Features of E-commerce

Fri, 01/18/2008 - 20:58 — Vlad
The_future_belongs_to_electronic_commerceAfter being applied only in online shopping the term e-commerce evolved and currently includes all features of business and market processes available via Internet and the technologies used in the World Wide Web. A simple and clear definition of the electronic commerce could be: business performed online, selling or purchasing goods and services via Web storefronts. The products may be physical or services, such as online consultation. In addition, e-commerce encompasses digital products, including news, audio and video, software and various knowledge-based products.

Electronic commerce means the process of selling and buying products and/or services through enabled technology. This technology is available through Internet. Just like in physical markets the e-commerce may feature such exchanges as b2b, b2c or ever c2c. The evolution of the electronic commerce has registered fast growth since the last decade of the 20th century. There have been significant socio-economic involvements during the transition from physical market to the technology-enabled one.

With the help of electronic commerce business transactions became less costly and in addition they can easily bypass geographic and time obstacles that the commerce previously faced. A lot of industries today are organized into supply chains that involve supply and demand rules among manufacturers, suppliers, warehouses, and stores. Thus the products arrive on due time and at the right spot. Business requirements represent the glue that sticks together different producers by providing company policies regarding prices, methods of payment, as well as other information stipulated in the contract.

With the help of automated business rules, the platforms of electronic commerce offer fast and synchronized exchange of data regarding supply and demand among the supply chain participants. Thus e-commerce reduces labor and inventory costs and at the same time increases customer satisfaction.

Internet also encourages companies to work together by allowing them to communicate easily in different time zones and cooperating between and within them via joint websites.

Other things that Internet technologies are impacting are related to socials issues, including privacy. Internet allows bypassing various physical and technological obstacles. It significantly simplifies the process of gathering personal data from customers providing new types of data to be gathered.

There is a certain concern about who owns and controls private data and how this information is collected. In 2001 the Congress of the United States analyzed at least 50 privacy-related bills. A lot of bills concerned the consumers' choice on opting in or out of private information collecting.

It is worth noting that privacy deals with customers' management of their transaction's information confidentiality. Security, however, means the level of protection of these transactions against assault or corruption.

Customers need to be sure about the fact that their credit card will stay secure before they offer the card on the Internet. In order to lower the risk of stealing credit card numbers, companies apply to digital certificates that prove their authenticity.

VeriSign represents one of the certificate authorities that take action of a third party that can be trusted to issue digital certificates. The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology represents an industry standard with the help of which digital certificates utilize encryption-based protocols that secure the integrity of customer's information exchanged online. When the information on the transaction resided on the website of the merchant, firewalls can be applied for prohibiting Internet access.

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