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Running Head: E-COMMERCE: SHOPPING ONLINE E-Commerce: Shopping Online Hector Acevedo Eastern Nazarene College Abstract E-commerce is still a new frontier. It continues to redefine the marketplace, alter business strategies, and allow global competitors to spring-up overnight. The term “electronic commerce” has evolved from electronic shopping to representing all areas of business and enabling market processes due to Internet and other technologies. Retail stores have joined the e-commerce market. Many retail stores have wised up and recognized the huge growth of people using the Internet. The Internet has virtually changed the way retailers do business. Twenty years ago the focus was on quality. Ten years ago it was on reengineering. Today E-commerce is being highly stressed; fast electronic interactions due to the Internet and other connected networks. E-commerce deals with how quickly the nature of business is changing. In addition, it also deals with how rapidly business itself is being transacted, and how access to information is changing the lifestyle of consumers and their expectations of business. E-Commerce: Shopping Online James O’Brien defines e-commerce as “ the buying and selling, and marketing and servicing of products, services, and information over a variety of computer networks.” (O’Brien, J. p.26). Electronic Commerce seems to be everywhere. It is virtually impossible to open a newspaper or magazine without seeing an article about how Electronic Commerce changing today’s businesses. With rushed life-styles and more double income homes across the country, consumers are left with very little time to spare for shopping. Therefore, retailers are trying to create a ‘home shopping experience’ where people can order items through the medium of mail order catalogs, video catalogs and through E-commerce on the Internet. It is the reverse of the old saying, “why go to them when they can come to me.” Where instead of the customer going to the store, the store goes to the customer. With this break through in retailing, the company is linked on the principle of convenience to the customer. “Research is presented describing the big economic advantages and tiny disadvantages of companies offering goods and services online compared with traditional retail markets” (Bakos, 2001, p. 69). This means businesses of all sizes are bombarded with adverts that seem to imply that any company not investing in E-commerce will be left behind. E-commerce sites offer everything that a normal brick and mortar store would offer and more. A person can wake up in the morning and shop for clothes on a retail site, or buy electronics from an electronic site. Then they can have whatever they purchased sent to their door at no charge. This can all be done from the privacy of their own home.
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