E-commerce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words - 4

E-commerce - Essay Example It is also based on the premise that competition is relentless and people are the most important raw materials (Morrison Institute). Today the internet is aggressively used as a channel for businesses both new and established ones; through entrepreneurial start-ups and corporate ventures. E-commerce firms are defined as those that derive a significant or rapidly growing proportion of their revenues from transactions over the internet but organizational and market phenomena have been just as influential as technology developments in the growth of e-commerce (Stace, Holtham & Courtney, 2001). Internet exchanges are beneficial not just for the customers or end users but it helps businesses to exchange and grow together. It is a platform to transact business, known as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-customer (B2C) and customer-to-customer (C2C) and has definite advantages over the traditional way of transacting business (Amit & Zott, 2000). Many firms have failed to harness the benefits of online business even though the retail segment has picked up rapidly in the last few years. The debate continues whether ecommerce complements fixed store retailing or replaces existing channels, namely the clicks and bricks channels. E-retailing has been constantly undergoing a process of innovation which has caused a threat to the established retail and distribution channels. This new form of commerce is laden with information and enables companies to speed up activities and increase their scope. The external and internal factors influence the firm’s behavior and companies can differentially obtain advantage depending upon their ability to conduct business (Burt & Sparks, 2003). A failure to operate would allow competitors to surge ahead. E-commerce can help to transform the traditional tasks and activities and the associated costs within the retain channel. The activities that are affected are the sourcing of products, stoc kholding, inventory