Global E-Commerce

Abstract

The impacts of telecommunications on businesses include a varieties of activities often lumped together under the term e-commerce, which includes both business-to-business (B2B) transactions as well as those linking firms to their customers (B2C) and customers-to-businesses (C2B). E-commerce takes a variety of forms, including electronic data interchange (e.g., inventory data, digital invoices and contracts, purchase orders, and product updates), internet recruiting and advertising, web-based banking and stock trading, electronic retail shopping, and digital gambling. For the most part, this activity is restricted to large commercial actors, although many observers hope that the internet will open opportunities for small and medium sized establishments to reach out to national and global markets. Digital convergence of hitherto distinct media has opened new possibilities in internet video and telephony. Advocates maintain that the internet will open opportunities for undercapitalized small and medium sized establishments (SMEs) to access national and global markets.