E-Commerce Lecture 2

In 1886, a telegraph operator was able to obtain a shipment of watches that was refused by the local jeweler. Using the telegraph, he sold all the watches to fellow operators and railroad employees. Within a few months, he made enough money to quit his job and start his own store. The young man's name was Richard Sears, and his company later became Sears, Roebuck.

Study Tip

In each lesson, you will find the following links:

The links for the lesson plan are probably the most important, this will give you a series of questions that will allow you to pinpoint your study to the specific areas that are important to the lesson materials. This is a lot of reading and you will find that the lesson plan will direct your study efforts.

One of the first learning objectives for this lesson is to "Understand how the Internet is causing the rules of business to change." One of the ways to accomplish this is to understand the difference between e-commerce and e-business. Although in most cases e-commerce and e-business are synonymous, e-commerce implies that goods and services can be purchased online, whereas e-business might be used as more of an umbrella term for a total presence on the Web, which would naturally include the e-commerce (shopping) component.

E-commerce may also refer to electronic data interchange (EDI), in which one company's computer queries and transmits purchase orders to another company's computer. Third parties provide EDI services that enable organizations with different equipment to connect. Although interactive access may be a part of it, EDI implies direct computer to computer transactions into vendors' databases and ordering systems.

The Internet has given EDI quite a boost, but not by using private networks and the traditional EDI data formats (X12, EDIFACT and TRADACOMS). Rather, XML has been the glue that connects businesses together using the Web as the communications vehicle.

In addition, e-business also refers to a term called "bricks and clicks," This refers to businesses that offer online services via the Web as well as the traditional retail outlets (offline) staffed by people. Coined in 1999 by David Pottruck, co-CEO of the Charles Schwab brokerage firm, it refers to running the two divisions in a cooperative and integrated manner where they both support and benefit from each other.

The First E-Commerce?

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