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Seminar-E-commerce and E-Government

E-commerce describes commercial transactions that take place using electronic communication methods like the Internet. It includes business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and consumer-to-consumer transactions. Factors affecting the spread of e-commerce include culture, technology, and policy at both the local and global levels. Key cultural factors are levels of trust and appeal of websites to different nationalities. Technical factors range from availability of encryption to Internet connectivity levels. Government policies around targets for Internet access and highlighting e-commerce benefits can significantly impact adoption.

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Laurentiu Danuta
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86 views2 pages

Seminar-E-commerce and E-Government

E-commerce describes commercial transactions that take place using electronic communication methods like the Internet. It includes business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and consumer-to-consumer transactions. Factors affecting the spread of e-commerce include culture, technology, and policy at both the local and global levels. Key cultural factors are levels of trust and appeal of websites to different nationalities. Technical factors range from availability of encryption to Internet connectivity levels. Government policies around targets for Internet access and highlighting e-commerce benefits can significantly impact adoption.

Uploaded by

Laurentiu Danuta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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E-commerce and E-government

KEY CONCEPTS

Electronic commerce

Commercial transactions

Billing

Procurement

Transaction

(B2B) business to business

(B2C) business to consumers

‘brick and mortar” shops

Virtual storefronts

Status quo

C2C – consumer to consumer

What is e-commerce?

E-commerce, or electronic commerce, describes commercial transactions which take


place using electronic communication methods, such as the Internet. It can take many forms,
from the sale of goods and services between businesses (B2B), or form businesses to
consumers (B2C). For many retail companies, “brick and mortar” shops are being replaced
by virtual storefronts on the Internet. Consumers can also sell to other consumers (C2C)
using online auction sites such as eBay. These sites display the goods for sale, offer dispute
resolutions services in the event of disagreement and also facilitate payment collection.
Governments use e-tendering for procurement (B2G) and increasingly they are using the
same technologies for non-commercial transactions, such as providing government
information and submitting government forms.

E-commerce has tremendous potential to speed up, simplify and reduce the costs of
all kinds of commercial and non-commercial transactions, and to provide easy access to
global markets. However, the evidence indicates that there are significant barriers to e-
commerce, resulting in huge variations between regions and countries. It is obvious,
therefore, that by identifying these barriers and devising ways to overcome them, significant
benefits can be delivered.
Factors affecting the spread of e-commerce can be grouped under three main
headings: culture, technology and policy. These factors can be further grouped in terms of
whether they are local or global.

The most important global cultural factor for international companies is ensuring that
their e-commerce web interfaces appeal to different nationalities. Most researchers agree that
key cultural factors include the level of trust between individuals, and also between
individual and institutions.

Technical factors can also be global or local. The availability of browser encryption
and secure web servers are usually thought of as global factors, while national factors include
the level of Internet spread, which is very low in many developing countries.

In addition, government legislation, such as setting targets for Internet connectivity


and bandwidth can have a significant role in e-commerce development. It is argued that local
and regional governments can identify the savings which e-commerce can provide in the
delivery of public services, and highlight the benefits it can bring to businesses.
Developments in technical infrastructure can often be carried out quickly, whereas other
infrastructure developments, which require political intervention, take place over much
longer timescales.

Evidence suggests that, in addition to technical infrastructure, the legal, financial and
physical aspects of a country’s infrastructure also need to be considered. For example,
consumer protection legislation ensures that the goods sold are of a good quality. The state of
the physical infrastructure determines how far and at what costs goods can be delivered.
Similarly, the state of the financial infrastructure will determine whether payments can be
made quickly and securely.

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