E-COMMERCE

E-Commerce

E-Commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked web pages and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW).

The Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous. The Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks, linked by copper wires, fibre-optic cables, wireless connections, etc. In contrast, the Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. The World Wide Web is one of the services accessible via the Internet, along with many others including e-mail, file sharing and others described below (Lee and Viehand, 2004).

Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost a decade, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s. On August 6, 1991, CERN, which straddles the border between France and Switzerland, publicized the new World Wide Web project. The Web was invented by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee OM KBE FRS FREng FRSA (born June 8, 1955) is an English developer who invented the World Wide Web in March 1989. With the help of Mike Sendall, Robert Cailliau, and a young student staff at CERN, he implemented his invention in 1990, with the first successful communication between a client and server via the Internet on December 25, 1990. (Lawrence et al., 1998)

The perspectives of leading e-commerce industry players reinforce the huge potential of e-commerce both globally and, more specifically, in the Middle East.

"The Internet Economy is reshaping the fortunes of countries, companies and people. By 2003, an estimated $1.5 trillion in annual e-commerce is forecast and by 2005 over 1 billion people will be on-line worldwide" - John Chambers, CEO, Cisco" With the arrival of Saudi Arabia on the Internet and in the Internet Age, we can expect a new community of Middle East users to join the Internet" - Rowland Griffith, General Manager, Cisco "The potential of e-commerce in the Middle East has not yet been fully realized. The potential of e-commerce is one that will open up enormous business opportunities and streamline the way business is currently being conducted" - Shaikh Khalid bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman, Bin Zayed Group "The growing use of Internet in Saudi Arabia and plans to provide higher bandwidth connections will give a big boost to e-commerce and raise the volume of e-business in the Middle East which is likely to exceed $1 billion by the year 2002" - Ned Jaroudi, Business Manager, Intel Corporation Ltd (Chaffey, 2009).

The world's leading payment association reported that increasing numbers of ...