Defining Electronic Commerce 

Although much of this course focuses on using the World Wide Web, it is important to state at the outset electronic commerce is more than web-based commerce. It involves all types of communications technology, including the WWW, email, private bulletin board systems or value-added networks, intranets and extranets. It uses all forms of communications technology: email, texting, television, fax, mobile and landline phones.

Electronic commerce is more than selling stuff online; it's using online resources and tools to do business better—more efficiently and productively. It's about making and saving money online.

Ecommerce can work for any business because it involves the whole business cycle from production, procurement, distribution, sales, payment, fulfillment, restocking, and marketing. It's about relationships with customers, employees, suppliers, and distributors. It involves support services like banks, lawyers, accountants, and government agencies.

According to the Census Bureau: "E-commerce (or electronic commerce) is any business transaction whose price or essential terms were negotiated over an online system such as an Internet, Extranet, Electronic Data Interchange network, or electronic mail system."

Electronic Commerce Means E-Business

According to J. G. Sandom, OgilvyOne Worldwide:

An analysis of leading corporate web sites reveals that the most successful sites understand how to exploit and integrate the following e-business functions:

• E-Communications — Expressing the brand(s) in cyberspace, along the entire sales cycle
• E-Service — Delivering value-added, interactive services to key constituencies
• E-Commerce — Enabling transactions

Source: ClickZ: Step-By-Step To Strategic Web Site Development

E-business involves:

• Strengthening relationships with customers and suppliers
• Checking out the competition
• Developing new product ideas and sources
• Dealing with government at all levels
• Re-designing business processes and management systems
• E-tailing or selling goods and services online

The Internet Economy

According to a study by SmartEcon.com the Internet economy is made up of the following layers:

• Infrastructure: creating and maintaining the network itself
  Backbone, ISPs, networking hardware and software, PC and server makers, security vendors
• Applications: providing products and services that make ecommerce possible
  Consultants, commerce software, multimedia applications, web development software, search engines, online training, web-enabled databases
• Intermediaries: facilitating buying and selling over the Internet
  Market makers, online brokerages, online travel agents, content aggregators, portals, ad brokers
• Commerce: selling goods and services to business and consumers over the Internet
  E-tailers, manufacturers selling online, fee/subscription services, airlines selling tickets online, online entertainment and professional services

Source: Measuring Internet Economy

The Internet Job Market

As the Internet evolves it creates new jobs and new job responsiblities. Across the globe many people are employed in jobs that didn't exist ten years ago as: webmasters, ecommerce developers, streaming media specialists, virtual world designers, mobile commerce integrators..

According to the Gartner Group, the 10 most powerful positions within an enterprise will be:

• Chief monitoring officer - monitoring business processes and metrics in real time
• E-marketplace manager - guiding through the new networked economy
• Marketing executives - spending on customer relationship-focused solutions
• E-deal makers - choosing the suppliers
• Customer relationship analytic expert - looking into the future and to see what people want before they need it, and the reasons why
• Transaction cops - making sure there is integrity in the transactions
• Human resources executives - assuring the supply of skilled workers
• E-business integrators - transforming legacy processes to networked economy processes
• Economists - telling enterprises when to take risks and when to shy away from them
• Anthropologist - diagnosing and describing

Source: Gartner Group

The current internet job picture may look a bit less rosey due to the current recession and war in the Middle East, nonetheless, technology drives the American economy and is likely to do so in the future. eCommerce and the Internet are definitely a part of that future.