Electronic Commerce

In this Information Age, the Internet economy is said to be the next growth engine. The advanced technology of the Internet has brought traditional business activities to a whole new level, which is electronic commerce. Internet is the strong force which fuels the growth of e-commerce. Electronic commerce refers to a wide variety of online business activities for any forms of products and services. Examples of online business activities are the delivery of business information, the transfer of ownership or rights of goods from one to another, and the establishment of business transactions. All these are conducted over the telecommunications networks and the electronic systems such as the Internet. In a similar manner, the parties which are involved in buying and selling interact with each other electronically rather than physical exchange.

Electronic commerce has different definitions and explanations in different perspective. From a communication perspective, e-commerce is the trading of information or settling payments electronically. From a service perspective, e-commerce is a tool which addresses the desire of firms, consumers and management while improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of delivery. From an online perspective, e-commerce is about the capability of buying and selling products or services. (Kalakota and Whinston 3) In general, e-commerce is the use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals. In this age of Internet, the development of e-commerce cause information asymmetry from an online perspective, on the other hand, information asymmetry is also reduced from a communication perspective. The rapid development of e-commerce affect the job market by destroying certain jobs such as salesman, and create new jobs such as web