Essay on the Spirit of web-based shopping past, present, future: New destination for on-line purchasing
(3089 Words)
Question 1
- How will the role of internet as a shopping technology enable change?
Products sold in the internet that succeed were digital goods such as music, video, pictures, e-books, games and so on, where it is possible to deliver the goods online rather than relying on physical fulfillment systems. As the Internet becomes an established part of the everyday life of the majority of householders, e-commerce will inevitably become something that consumers feel more comfortable engaging in (Anderson, Meethan & Miles 2001). Items which rely on or can benefit from the provision of information to support them were likely to succeed online, for example, health and beauty supplies. Pharmacy items are mostly non-perishable, easy to ship and generate many repeat purchases, and are therefore ideally suited to this medium. There is an appealing anonymity in shopping online for products which it might be embarrassing to ask for in a high-street pharmacy (Anderson, Meethan & Miles 2001). Online shopping has created a huge impact in the human activity of shopping. In the past it created the need to create a process that will hasten shopping transactions. It innovated the way shopping is done. At present it makes use of newer technologies bought about by man’s logical approach to problems. At present online shopping is continuously improved in all aspects. All processes involved in that online shopping is being carefully studied and improved to meet the demands of changes in the environment. In the future online shopping might be the major means of purchasing products, the once successful phenomenon of personal shopping would dwindle and minimize.
- Will the internet be used to express emotion for or on behalf of a client?
Since it arrived on the scene as a full-fledged cultural and social phenomenon, the Internet and its graphical interface, the World Wide Web, have come to dominate virtually all conversations about the future of technology and, by extension, the future of business. It is safe to say that the World Wide Web is simultaneously over hyped and undervalued. Looking back the scope of today’s information technology revolution is staggering (Papows 1998). The accelerating speed of the evolution of hardware, software, and communications easily justifies the term web years meaning cycles of change lasting three months at most, in contrast with traditional business cycles that typically lasted a year or more. Over the past decade, information technology has become a, if not the, defining element in business itself. Once confined mainly to intra company activities, computerized interactions now reach across business, social, political, and geographic boundaries, compelling new ways of working, communicating, and organizing activities in both the commercial and personal realms. The once arcane realm of information technology is drastically redefining all core competencies and helping to construct new visions for the future (Papows 1998). Although the internet seems to be an over emphasized phenomenon, its impact in the business cannot be matched by other technologies. The internet is constantly evolving and one possible change is the emergence of preemptive transactions wherein web based companies will be able to predict the wants and needs of clients. In this situation, various data gathering strategies are used by web based companies to identify what a client may want.
- What will be the effect of online communication to real communication?
At the very core of the meaning of the Web is linkage and connection: it is fundamentally about modes of communication and presenting possibilities about how those modes might intersect. Thus the Web is simultaneously a mass-mediated and one-to-one form of communication. It is a site of incredible cultural consumption and cultural production and makes it harder to establish the boundary between these two activities 9Burnett & Marshall 2002). Whether one is referring to the immediacy of use, the multimedia play, the hypertext links between sites and texts, or the blending of personal space with sites that are for more public perusal, the Web and the Internet can be conceptualized as a media technology that produces a loose Web of interrelated activities. The significance of the Web is in more general terms associated with exchange, but in more specific terms it is fundamentally defined by links and linkages. The use of the various communication forms possible via the Internet, from e-mail and newsgroups to chat rooms and discussion forums, become the way that any particular Web site both expands its own content and connects with its users to provide a rich form of interactivity and engagement (Burnett & Marshall 2002). One of the problems of the internet is it causes the users to divert from his/her environment. The use of internet as a communication tool caused the declining quality of real communication. If this continuous the future will be bleak for man’s means to communicate and relate to one another. With future advancements in the internet technologies comes the need to determine means to improve rather than destroy man’s real time communication capabilities.
- How the internet can be used to reduce social class divide?
Popular notions of the Internet as a social trap that replaces rich and rewarding real relationships with weak and impoverished virtual ones are largely incorrect. Although one’s average e-mail interaction might be less rewarding or useful than one’s average face-to-face interaction this is tangential to the question of whether the relationships one forms over the Internet can become as important and satisfying as do ones formed out of traditional, offline meetings. Once associative connections are formed between one’s true self and relationship partners, there is a strong motivational pull to make those relationships a social reality, to bring them into one’s face-to-face world (Fein et al., 2003). People are not content to leave important new Internet relationships online and virtual they want instead to turn the virtual into a reality. For those virtual relationships that are important to the person’s identity the person will take the necessary steps to move that important electronic relationship into the more rewarding offline, real-world setting. The Internet allows one to expand one’s circle of acquaintances beyond the local and the day-to-day (Fein et al., 2003). With a much wider reach for the internet comes the opportunity for such technology to unite the internet haves and have notes. When the social class divide is removed, personal and business transactions can be completed at a much faster pace. This would entail additional means to solve ancient problems and misunderstandings. In the future, the internet can be used as a tool to affiliate cultures and practices from people located in distant geographical places. This would help in the creation of process that would ease human living.
References for question 1
Anderson, A, Meethan, K & Miles, S (eds.) 2001, The
changing consumer: Markets and meanings, Routledge, New
York.
Burnett, R Marshall, PD 2002, Web theory: An introduction,
Routledge, London.
Fein, S, Olson, JM, Spencer, SJ & Zanna, MP 2003, Motivated
social perception, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Papows, J 1998, Enterprise.com: Market leadership in the
information age, Perseus Books, Perseus Publishing.
Question 2 Literature Review on the impact of E-commerce
The internet and its impact
In its earliest years before it became international the Internet was a single experimental network serving a dozen sites in the United States and a related set of innovative computer based communications techniques that made possible some networking experiments with advanced computer sites in Europe (Franda 2001).Franda’s article gave a description of how the internet developed. The internet is a connection of network systems from all over the world. The researcher agreed with Franda’s article that pertains to the internet having various capacities and capabilities changed the way some things are done internationally and locally. The worker who learns to use the Internet at the office may subsequently use the Internet to participate in activities of his professional society, to communicate with members of his family, and to participate in chat rooms discussing politics. The direct impact of the Internet on the individual user seems to be the most commonly discussed, probably because it is the simplest to conceptualize and to measure. It seems unlikely to be the most important. Few people spend large part of their income on the Internet, and one must assume that the marginal net benefits of such use are comparable to the cost of Internet connectivity (Nicholas & Rowlands 2000). Nicholas and Rowlands provided their ideas on how the internet impacted society. The researchers agree with the two authors on their ideas of how the internet created changes in the environment and what is the value of the internet to society. The internet has created an impact to almost everything in this world. It changed the way business operates; it also created changes in the way people do their work in the organization.
E-commerce
All estimates concerning the growth of e-commerce have one thing in common. They point to phenomenal growth over a very short period of time. Categories such as cars or flowers ordered over the Internet and delivered physically may be included in wider estimates. Companies that adapt and exploit the new opportunities will gain competitive advantage and others will be left behind. On a larger scale, existing indications show a widening gap between developing and developed economies in terms of competitiveness in this area. The absence of important and far-reaching policies in the developing economies could lead to the loss of existing industry and failure to attract new industries. This would mean a reduction in employment and tax revenue, with obvious negative consequences for overall economic performance in these countries (Karake-Shalhoub 2002).
In order to create the right environment to assist and to promote widespread use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), a number of areas need to be addressed: the provision of adequate telecommunications infrastructure; procedures to promote the development of e-commerce and business prospects; the placement of appropriate enabling measures to smooth the progress and development of, and access to applications using ICTs; adoption of legislative arrangements to support those enabling measures; development of electronic delivery methods for public services; and a variety of support activities (Karake-Shalhoub 2002). Many of the developments related to the information or knowledge society, such as Internet growth and the emergence of e-commerce, have arisen only over the last five or six years. The nature of these developments and the speed with which they occur impose new demands on the ability of government departments to keep abreast of them and to seek to influence and respond to them. The sheer pace of development and the absolute necessity to respond rapidly mean that additional resources are required in key areas if people are to deal adequately with the range of issues identified and help accomplish the objective of any country being a key player in the information or knowledge society (Karake-Shalhoub 2002).
Just as the internal combustion engine and jet engine have radically changed people’s lives, the Internet is beginning to do the same. In the short time of its existence the Internet has greatly affected business and society. The Internet’s evolution and future development are set to continue. The Internet has fundamentally changed business activity. The buying and selling of products and services, market making, the forging of relationships between companies and customers or between two or more organizations; all these activities are increasingly being digitized (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001). Although the success of these efforts is not guaranteed, the business landscape is now truly digitized. Some types of e-Commerce are not likely to succeed. The digital technology that enables e-Commerce is progressing and will continue to offer companies opportunities for further changing their business activities. Firms looking to remain competitive in the e-Business arena have to be prepared to reorganize and restructure themselves more or less continuously. If the restructuring of traditional businesses really is so central to their development of successful e-Business strategies, it is essential to understand how to manage change effectively in order to sustain competitive advantage (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001).
While there are undoubtedly many firms that have an established tradition of successful inter-organizational networking, Internet developments have made such initiatives increasingly central to e-Business strategy. One of the first challenges companies face when attempting to embrace e-Business and its corresponding technologies is how to move from being a physical or bricks and mortar organization to being a digital or virtual organization (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001). It is here that a company encounters its first problem, which is one of technology. The particular difficulty relates to the attempt to evolve their legacy systems to an infrastructure that will support e-Business. Few businesses find themselves in the position where they can throw away the old and introduce new, customized computer systems. Legacy systems often perform essential activities upon which daily business processes depend (Eckersley, Harris & Jackson 2001). The researcher agree more with the article of Karake-Shalhoub since it discussed more about e-commerce and what will happen once e- commerce technology grow and develop. The researcher agrees with Karake-Shalhoub in how they explained what triggered how the internet and its related systems developed.
The growth of e-commerce
When the internet emerged, it offered investors new opportunities for capital gains on their stock holdings. To the extent that this medium promised a huge number of investment opportunities and efficiency gains, it boosted already high valuations of corporations, especially those firms standing to benefit the most from the growth of e-commerce (Guttmann 2002). Investors, whether individual or institutional, were more than ready to apply nontraditional valuation standards to the growth sectors of the new economy. The competitive and innovation-rich nature of the internet put a premium on having good ideas and the skill pool to realize those ideas through fast-paced product development. their perennial rush to get ahead of others, internet-based producers depend heavily on new forms of productive capital, such as customer and supplier relationships, links to other sites, brand names, intellectual property rights, flexible organizational structures, entrepreneurial and technological skill pools and teamwork spirit (Guttmann 2002).
Attracted by the magical powers of the internet, investors were willing to value these unconventional and relatively scarce forms of productive capital at a high premium. To the extent that all these inputs are intangible in nature, they are difficult to measure. Deprived of standard measurement criteria developed by accounting and economics for physical capital, valuations of intangible capital will be more exposed to the mood swings of the investor community until it works out how to value those resources with reasonable accuracy. When e-commerce began to emerge in 1996, its first wave of applications concerned business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions which took off with amazing speed. For instance, book selling moved rapidly online, with Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble slugging it out in the virtual marketplace. The same proved true for airline tickets, allowing airline companies to reduce ticket processing costs (Guttmann 2002). These early successes triggered an explosion of B2C-oriented online suppliers, as more and more firms specializing in consumer goods or services made it their primary concern to create attractive web sites and get customers to spend online. Merchant networks, a sort of electronic shopping mall, have sprung up all across the web to enjoy the fruits of co branding, jointly organized sales-promotion schemes, centralized payment facilities and other advantages from belonging to a large network (Guttmann 2002). Their rapid spread was taken as sign that B2C commerce had the potential of maturing rapidly into a viable alternative to traditional retail trade conducted in brick-and-mortar stores. A related e-commerce segment with similarly explosive growth potential, so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions emerged with the phenomenal success of eBay. Specializing in online auctions, this internet company has turned millions of Americans into avid buyers and sellers of new or used goods on the internet (Guttmann 2002). The researcher agree with Guttmann in his article that mentioned how e-commerce has grown and developed and how it changed the way people transact their business with organizations that offer a product they want. E-commerce has turned into various transactions that tried to intensify personal and businesses relations to each other.
E-commerce in developing Countries
Access to the Internet requires access to a telephone, which is still an urban and developed country phenomenon. Even where telephone access is assured, the capacity of that telephone line varies enormously, the call charges vary hugely, and terminal equipment is needed. Users of the Internet will know that access to the global information system (GIS) requires a PC. The investment required for the developed world to achieve high-speed access to an always-on Internet is enormous (Marsden 2000). The further investment for all consumers to so do, not simply the rich and technologically literate, is an even greater challenge. For developing countries, particularly those with limited physical infrastructure and great geographical size the challenge is far greater even than this. With the benefits of the Industrial Revolution so clustered within regions of the world, and regions within those regions, the Information Revolution risks further separating the affluent few from the desperate many (Marsden 2000). In some developing countries the process is only starting; its pace, regarding external relations or domestic activities, depends on the outcomes of its policies, on the economic successes and financial difficulties of countries. Furthermore, invisible barriers to trade in advanced countries may be all the more lasting as product markets have become more complex, more differentiated (Archibugi & Lundvall 2001). The researcher agrees with Marsden and Archibugi & Lundvall in their articles that mentioned that e-commerce implementation in developing countries was and will be affected by the budgets, policies, situation and other external factors.
Preliminary methods and analysis
Data was gathered through the use of various published sources. Gathered data was organized, collated and summarized to come up with the impact of e-commerce. The impact of e-commerce for countries includes the reduced need for newer technologies; operational effectiveness to the development of countries and the businesses in various countries; improved ways to maintain the financial and maintenance cost of countries and the businesses in those countries; higher chance of privacy of data; higher levels of security and privacy that can be used to counter any threats from its environment, the reduction of the problems on conducting transactions; the reduced wastage of time; the ability of businesses to manage their clients account; the capacity for countries and businesses in those countries to easily acquire needed data; the chance for countries and the businesses in those countries to save time and energy; and the chance to speed up transaction and serve the needs of more people. These impacts of e-commerce to countries are a big factor in changing the identity of countries from what was branded towards them by the environment. Through the abovementioned impacts countries are steering away from the negative implications of them and it attracts investors to put up businesses that will help them to acquire economic development. The impacts of e-commerce to various nations prove that the literatures on the internet and e-commerce are really transpiring in developing countries. The literature gave a wider description of how the internet and e-commerce impacted both developed and developing countries.
References for question 2
Archibugi, D & Lundvall, B (eds.) 2001, The globalizing
learning economy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Balmer, JT & Greyser, SA 2003, Revealing the corporation:
perspectives on identity, image, reputation, corporate
branding, and corporate-level marketing and anthology, New
York: Routledge.
Benveniste, J, Dunphy, D, Griffiths, A & Sutton, P (eds.)
2000, Sustainability: The corporate challenge of the 21st
century, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, N.S.W.
Blenkhorn, DL & Fleisher, CS (eds.) 2003, Controversies in
competitive intelligence: the enduring issues, Praeger,
Westport, CT.
Burnett, R & Marshall, PD 2002, Web theory: An
introduction, Routledge, London
Chen, TP, Flowers, EB & Shyu, JP (eds.) 1999, Interlocking
global business systems: the restructuring of industries,
economies and capital markets, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.
Currie, W & Galliers, B (eds.) 1999, Rethinking management
information systems: an interdisciplinary perspective,
Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Duray, D & Vering, M 2001, The E-business workplace:
discovering the power of enterprise portals, Wiley, New
York
Eckersley, PM, Harris, L & Jackson, P (eds.) 2001, E-
Business fundamentals: managing organizations in the
electronic age, Routledge, New York.
Epstein, MJ 2004, Implementing E-commerce strategies: a
guide to corporate success after the Dot.Com bust,
Praeger, Westport, CT.
Fenech, T & Merrilees, B 2004, E-Retailing, Routledge, New
York.
Franda, M 2001, Governing the internet: The emergence of an
international regime, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO.
Guttmann, R 2002, Cybercash: The coming era of electronic
money, Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Goodman, PS (eds.) 2002, Technology enhanced learning:
opportunities for change, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Mahwah, NJ.
Hart, JA & Prakash, A (eds.) 2000, Coping with
globalization, Routledge, London
Horan, T & Zimmerman, R (eds.) 2004, Digital
infrastructures, Routledge, New York.
Jacko, JA & Sears, A (eds.) 2003, The human-computer
interaction handbook: fundamentals, evolving technologies,
and emerging applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Mahwah, NJ.
Jordan, T 1999, Cyberpower: The culture and politics of
cyberspace and the internet, Routledge, London.
Kanji, GK 2002, Measuring business excellence, Routledge,
London.
Karake-Shalhoub, Z 2002, Trust and loyalty in electronic
commerce: an agency theory perspective, Quorum Books,
Westport, CT.
Keijzers, G 2004, Business, government and sustainable
development, Routledge, New York.
Lant, TK & Shapira, Z (eds.) 2001, Organizational
cognition: computation and interpretation, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Laurila, J & Preece, D (eds.) 2003, Technological change
and organizational action, Routledge, New York.
Leonard, DC 2004, Learning theories A to Z, Oryx Press,
Westport, CT.
Marsden, CT (ed.) 2000, Regulating the Global information
society, Routledge, London
Morrison, D 2003, E-Learning strategies: how to get
implementation and delivery right first time, Wiley, New
York.
Nicholas, D & Rowlands, I (eds.) 2000, The internet: its
impact and evaluation, Aslib/IMI, London.
Stroud, D 1998, Internet strategies: a corporate guide to
exploiting the internet, Macmillan, Basingstoke, England.
Tansey, SD 2002, Business, information technology and
society, Routledge, New York.
Thierauf, RJ 2001, Effective business intelligence systems,
Quorum Books, Westport, CT.
Wignaraja, G (ed.) 2002, Competitiveness strategy in developing countries: a manual for policy analysis, Routledge, London.
Zwell, M 2000, Creating a culture of competence, Wiley, New York.