E-commerce: Abbreviation for Electronic Commerce. A way of doing real-time business transactions via telecommunications networks, when the customer and the merchant are in different geographical places. Note: Electronic commerce is a broad concept that includes virtual browsing of goods on sale, selection of goods to buy, and payment methods. Electronic commerce operates on a bona fide basis, without prior arrangements between customers and merchants. E-commerce operates via the Internet using all or any combination of technologies designed to exchange data (such as EDI or e-mail), to access data (such as shared databases or electronic bulletin boards), and to capture data (through the use of bar coding and magnetic or optical character readers).
The convergence of computer and telecommunications technologies has revolutionized how we get, store, retrieve, and share information. Consumers now routinely use computer networks to identify sellers, evaluate products and services, compare prices, and exert market leverage. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) are business processes which shift transactions to the Internet. E-commerce is growing at a rapid rate. The value of e-commerce transactions, while still small relative to the size of the U.S. economy, continues to show strong growth despite a recent economic downturn. More significant than the dollar amount of these transactions, however, are the new business processes. Many new Internet-based companies and traditional producers of goods and services are working to transform their business processes into e-commerce processes in an effort to lower costs, improve customer service, and increase productivity, with varying degrees of success.
The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced in May 2008 that U.S. retail e-commerce sales for 2006 reached $ 107 billion, up from $ 87 billion in 2005 - an increase of 22 percent. From 2001 to 2006, retail e-sales increased at an average annual growth rate of of 25.4 percent, compared with 4.8 percent for total retail sales. In 2006 e-commerce sales were 2.7 percent of total sales. Over 90 percent of retail e-sales were concentrated in two industry groups: Nonstore retailers (73 percent, $78 billion), and Motor Vehicles and Parts Dealer (19 percent, $20 billion)
There are a range of policy issues which will certainly affect the future of e-commerce activities. Internet use erases national boundaries, and the growth of e-commerce on the Internet and the complexity of these issues mean that domestic and global e-commerce policies will become increasingly intertwined. Issues currently under discussion include Internet taxation, encryption and electronic authentication (i.e., digital signatures), intellectual property protection (i.e., patent or copyright infringement), computer network security, privacy safeguards for individuals and organizations, and telecommunications infrastructure development. In the United States, legislation enacted as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001(USA PATRIOT ACT of 2001, P.L. 107-56) gave U.S. lawmakers greater authority to gain access to electronic financial transactions (for example, to ferret out illegal money laundering).
