The Impact of E-Commerce on International Business - Essay Example

And e-commerce often becomes handy in making products or services available to the consumer that may not be available in his country/area of residence. In simple words, e-commerce makes international markets easier, cheaper, and faster for the vendor as well as the consumer. But it must be admitted that e-commerce has its own disadvantages too, especially while coming to Internet security and delay in receiving the product ordered. The study on “Impact of E-Commerce on International Marketing” conducted by Payman, Rosamaria, Marco, Anand, Robert and Xiaowen in 2006 defines e-commerce as follows: “Electronic commerce primarily consists of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic communications systems such as the Internet and other computer networks like extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases and mobile phones” (Payman, Rosamaria, Macro, Anand, Robert, and Xiaowen).

All kinds of commerce including B2B, B2C and C2C activities are performed in a number of ways including electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, online marketing, etc. As per the above mentioned study (Payman et al.), a voluminous sale of $12.2 billion took place in 2003 via e-commerce. Today, the World Wide Web has emerged as the exclusive venue of e-commerce ventures as it is the most widespread communication network of the world. A number of e-commerce companies took their shape in 1990s, but the “dot.

com” collapse of 2000 and 2001 was a major setback for them. It was at the beginning of the new millennium that e-commerce received the popular attention and acceptance which it boasts about today. The extent and expansion of e-commerce relies cliquishly on the expansion of technology. E-Commerce is widespread in almost all the developed countries but it is still in primary stages of growth in many industrialized countries and is apparently non-existent in a good proportion of the third world countries.

Electronic Commerce is, of course, a new methodology in global trade and commerce. A paper by Kuzic, Fisher and Scollar that studies the impact of e-commerce in Australia points out that e-commerce has its own tangible and intangible benefits. As Kuzic, Fisher and Scollary state, e-commerce is mainly “enhanced business efficiency, a boost in the automation of processes, transformation of traditional market chain, retained and expanded customer base, reduced operation costs and acquisition of a niche market” which are regarded as the tangible benefits; and, “enhancing education and well-being of consumers, consumer loyalty, competitive advantage and convenient shopping” are the intangible advantages.

Many of these are clearly benefits that no other way of trading involves. E-Commerce is beneficial not only for the merchant but also for the consumer because it offers a wide range of products to choose the best from, and the remarkable speed of the processes cannot be found anywhere else. Compared to traditional markets, the transactions take place between the seller and buyer directly and no intermediates are present contrary to the traditional markets. When we think how the international market has been benefited out of e-commerce, a common opinion