E-commerce 2023: business. technology.
society.
Seventeenth Edition
Chapter 1
The Revolution Is Just
Beginning
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Learning Objectives
1.1 Understand why it is important to study e-commerce.
1.2 Define e-commerce, understand how e-commerce differs from e-
business, identify the primary technological building blocks underlying
e-commerce, and recognize major current themes in e-commerce.
1.3 Identify and describe the unique features of e-commerce
technology and discuss their business significance.
1.4 Describe the major types of e-commerce.
1.5 Understand the evolution of e-commerce from its early years to
today.
1.6 Describe the major themes underlying the study of e-commerce.
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ECOMMERCE CASE
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Youtube: Creators and the Creator
Economy
• Class Discussion
– Why is Youtube so popular?
– Do you use Youtube? If so, in what manner—do you
just view content or also post content?
– Do you consider yourself a creator? Have you ever
received payments for content you have created?
– What are some of the negative consequences
associated with being a creator?
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Everything on Demand
• Uber is a poster child for “digital disruption.”
• Uber’s business model is also much more efficient than a
traditional taxi firm.
– Uber does not own taxis and has no maintenance and
financing costs.
– Uber calls its drivers “independent contractors,” not
employees.
– Doing so enables Uber to avoid costs for workers’
compensation, minimum wage requirements, driver
training, health insurance, and commercial licensing.
• Uberization of work (gig economy)
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The First Five Minutes: Why You Should
Study E-commerce
• First quarter-century or so of e-commerce
– Still just the beginning
– Rapid growth and change
• Technologies evolve at exponential rates
– Disruptive business change
– New opportunities
• Why study e-commerce
– Understand opportunities and risks
– Analyze e-commerce ideas, models, issues
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What Is E-commerce?
• Use of Internet to transact business
– Includes Web, mobile browsers and apps
– Internet vs. Web
• More formally:
– Digitally enabled commercial transactions between
and among organizations and individuals
– An exchange of value occurs
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The Difference Between E-commerce and
E-business
• E-business
– Digital enabling of transactions and processes within
a firm, involving information systems under firm’s
control
– Does not include commercial transactions involving
an exchange of value across organizational
boundaries
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Figure 1.1 The Difference Between
E-commerce and E-business
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Technological Building Blocks
Underlying E-commerce
• The Internet
– Worldwide network of computer networks built on
common standards
• The World Wide Web
– Provides access to trillions of web pages created in
HTML
– “Surface” Web versus “deep” Web
• Mobile platform
– Smartphones, tablets, ultra-lightweight laptops
– Mobile apps
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Technological Building Blocks
Underlying E-commerce
• https://amela.vn/phan-biet-native-app-web-app-hybrid-a
pp-nen-su-dung-app-nao/
• https://baseus.vn/blogs/news/su-khac-biet-giua-deep-w
eb-va-dark-web-la-gi
• https://viettelidc.com.vn/tin-tuc/html-la-gi-nguyen-ly-
hoat-dong-cua-html
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Insight on Technology: Will Apps Make
the Web Irrelevant?
• Class Discussion
– What are the advantages and disadvantages of
apps, compared with websites, for mobile users?
– What are the benefits of apps for content owners
and creators?
– What are progressive web apps and how do they
differ from native apps?
– Will apps eventually make the Web irrelevant?
Why or why not?
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Major Trends in E-commerce (1 of 3)
• Business trends include:
– Retail e-commerce and m-commerce settle back to
normal growth rates (around 10%) after Covid-19
pandemic
– Mobile app ecosystem: almost 250 million U.S. adults
use smartphone apps
– Social e-commerce estimated to generate around $55
billion in 2022
– B2B e-commerce revenues expected to reach about
$8.5 trillion in 2022
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Major Trends in E-commerce (2 of 3)
• Technology trends include:
– Mobile platform
– Cloud computing
– Internet of Things
– Big data
– Artificial intelligence technologies
– Blockchain
– Web3
– Metaverse
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Major Trends in E-commerce (3 of 3)
• Societal trends include:
– User-generated content
– Commercial and governmental invasion of privacy
– Concerns about increasing market dominance of
Amazon, Google, Meta (Big Tech)
– Online security issues
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Revenue of ecommerce platform
report 2024
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Unique Features of E-commerce
Technology (1 of 2)
1. Ubiquity
– marketplace → marketspace
– reduce transaction cost (travel time and effort)
– lessen cognitive energy
2. Global reach
3. Universal standards
– television and radio standards differ around the world
– network externalities
4. Information richness
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Unique Features of E-commerce
Technology (2 of 2)
5. Interactivity
– Traditional television or radio, for instance, cannot ask viewers questions or
enter into conversations with them, or request that customer information be
entered into a form.
6. Information density
– the total amount and quality of information available to all market
participants
– Price transparency, cost transparency, price discrimination
7. Personalization/customization
– information about the consumer’s past purchases and behavior can be
stored and used by online merchants
8. Social technology
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Figure 1.4 Eight Unique Features of
E-commerce Technology
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Types of E-commerce
• Mobile e-commerce (M-commerce)
– conversational commerce involves the use of chatbots on
mobile messaging apps
• Social e-commerce
– Live Streaming
– Virtual shop
– Ratings and recommendations
• Local e-commerce
– local on-demand services such as Uber, AirBnB
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Figure 1.9 The Relative Size of Different
Types of E-commerce
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E-commerce: A Brief History (1 of 4)
• Precursors
– Baxter Healthcare modem-based system (1970s)
– Order entry systems (1980s)
– Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards (1980s)
– French Minitel (1981)
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E-commerce: A Brief History (2 of 4)
• 1995–2000: Invention
– Sale of simple retail goods
– Limited bandwidth and media
– Euphoric visions of:
▪ Technologists celebrated the fact that the Internet was not controlled by
anyone or any nation but was free to all.
▪ For economists, the early years of e-commerce raised the realistic prospect
of a nearly perfect competitive market
▪ disintermediation
▪ Friction-free commerce
– First-mover advantages
▪ building in switching costs for their customers through proprietary interface
designs and features available only on one platform
▪ network effect
– Dot-com crash of 2000
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E-commerce: A Brief History (3 of 4)
• 2001–2006: Consolidation
– Emphasis on business-driven approach (vs.
technology driven)
– Traditional large firms expand presence
– Start-up financing shrinks
– More complex products and services sold (travel and
finance)
– Growth of search engine advertising
– Business web presences expand
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E-commerce: A Brief History (4 of 4)
• 2007–Present: Reinvention
– Rapid growth of:
▪ Web 2.0, including online social networks
▪ Mobile platform
▪ Local commerce
▪ On-demand service economy
– Entertainment content develops as source of
revenues
– Transformation of marketing
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Figure 1.10 Periods in the Development
of E-commerce
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Insight on Business: Y Combinator’s
Startup Boot Camp
• Class Discussion
– Why do you think investors today are still interested
in investing in startups?
– What are the benefits of investing in a company that
is a graduate of a Y Combinator boot camp?
– Is an incubator the best solution for startups to find
funding? Why or why not?
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Assessing E-commerce (1 of 2)
• Stunning technological success
• Early years a mixed business success
– Few early dot-coms have survived
– Online sales growing rapidly
• Many early visions not fulfilled
– Price dispersion
– Information asymmetry, e.g., flash pricing
– New intermediaries, e.g., expedia, agoda, etc.
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Assessing E-commerce (2 of 2)
• Other surprises
– Fast-follower advantages
– Start-up costs
– Impact of mobile platform
– Emergence of on-demand e-commerce
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Understanding E-commerce:
Organizing Themes
• Technology
– Development and mastery of digital computing and
communications technology
• Business
– New technologies present businesses with new ways
of organizing production and transacting business
• Society
– Intellectual property, individual privacy, public welfare
policy
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Insight on Society: Facebook and the
Age of Privacy
• Class Discussion
– Why are social networks interested in collecting user
information?
– What types of privacy invasion are associated with
Facebook?
– How do you protect your privacy online?
– https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/info-tech/indian
-women-ditching-facebook-due-to-safety-privacy-conc
erns-study/article65666502.ece
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Careers in E-commerce
• Position: Category Specialist in the E-commerce Retail
Program
• Qualification/Skills
• Preparing for the Interview
• Possible Interview Questions
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