E-Commerce

Due to the growing influence of the Internet, much of global business is now conducted online. Termed E-commerce, this is the process whereby transactions of goods and services are conducted over electronic systems, such as the Internet. This includes banking, money transfer systems such as Pay Pal, marketing, video conferencing, order processing and content management systems.

Electronic commerce can either be conducted between business and customer or business to business, which is also known as B2B. In the latter case, it can either be open to all, such as the exchange of commodities for example, or, restricted to specific companies via a private electronic market. In the case of business to customer, e-commerce can operate on a variety of levels, from purchasing physical goods from online shopping sites such as Amazon, through to the purchase of downloadable digital content such MP3 (music) files.

In our time-crunched, busy lives, more and more people are choosing to use e-commerce, for such reasons as convenience, competitive pricing and ease of use. The results of this are being felt by many of the traditional high street retailers, who find that they are unable to compete with what appears to be unbeatable offers. For many, this has led to a downturn in sales and ultimately, their profits.