ES9R2-10 01 E-commerce-technology and future trends Assignment Sample
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1. Introduction
The term of E-commerce is going trend in every aspect and people are also become familiar with this concept in a well manner. However, people understand the e-commerce concept as an electronic commerce which includes the commercial transaction across the internet (Pantano, 2014). It means that vendor sells his product to the customers over the internet and payment is also done through online. But, now e-commerce’s does not solely based for the selling or purchasing but it is also used by the traders or customers for different purposes. Thus, the concept of e-commerce is evolution with the changing of business environment. Thus, this section will define the e-commerce and its latest trends in today’s developing environment. In addition, this study will also discuss importance of e-commerce technology and its future trends in growing market. Under this study, it is also found that what all evolutions are occurring or tend to arise in future. This way, the study discusses the e-commerce all areas like its establishment and the evolutions in this concept.
Additionally, it is also estimated that e-commerce influences around 56% in-store purchases and USA is the biggest example of such change. These figures clearly signify that the stores are no longer surviving without being present in front of customers (Fosso Wamba, 2012). However, B2B is the e-commerce tipping point which will become more frequent in 2018. But in recent scenario, there are certain innovation in technology is implemented. Some of the storefront digitizing, Chatbot, Beacon technology and Voice assistants etc. these areas are deeply studied in the main body. Thus, these evolutions clearly highlight the dependency level of people over the e-commerce activities.
2. Discussion
In today’s frequently changing business environment, the e-commerce is achieving great exposure in both the sides such as companies and customers. At initial time, the concept of e-commerce is introduced with the purpose to find the ways of co-operating and tackling of consumer problems connected with cross-border transactions in both goods and services. But, such concept purpose will go change with the use of local traders in order to contact the home country people (Huang and Benyoucef, 2013). This way its purpose gets changes with time. In regards to this study, the discussion is based on different aspects of the e-commerce and it includes the significances of e-commerce and its current and future trends and development.
2.1 E-commerce Definition
Different authors, researchers have varied understanding about the e-commerce. Likewise, some describe this terminology as that it is a trading between two parties over the digital platform. While others believes that e-commerce is the advanced technology within which individual select, make choice and compare the product and then take final decision to purchase it. Besides that, Kaplan and Haenlein, (2010) stated that e-commerce’s is not only support to the trading between company and customer. But, it also pushes to the B2B within which manufacturer can contact to the suppliers and distributors for timely availability of resources. Thus, this technology can be defined in different ways.
According to Kim et al. (2011), Amazon is the best example of a company that has gained huge benefit from the e-commerce explosion. It is found that Amazon start the use of digital platform in 1994 as an amazon.com and it is simply a bookstore. The original investment is made by the company on the warehousing and delivery processes. Company took at 10 years to make a profit and now company become a largest e-commerce brand in the world. Thus, this example indicates that e-commerce’s provide huge benefits to the company in regards to tap the uncovered market and areas. At the same time, this concept is also contributing efficiency for the customers in regards to easily available of product at their door step (Liang et al., 2011). This technology is the best suited for fulfilling the desires of various individuals such as customers, companies, shareholders and different stakeholders etc.
2.2 Importance of e-commerce development
The e-commerce has developed its importance in the emerging market very successfully because of which companies are growing their business rapidly in the competitive international market. E-commerce has shown an enormous growth in the developing market from last few years. The retail business has shown a high growth and development by achieving the set sales target on and meeting the customer’s needs on time (Goldmanis et al., 2010). While studying, it is identified that e-commerce became successful because it various benefits and advantages that it offers to the customers in order to attract and target them efficiently and effectively.
E-commerce development provides convince to everyone to shop 24*7 from anywhere around the world. This is a biggest advantage behind the development of the e-commerce business which helped the users to identify the product online and purchase it from other. This service is found very efficient for the user as this reduced their time to purchase product from stores with the offers provided by e-commerce companies directly. In this competitive environment, the importance of e-commerce in the business is high because this helps the companies to market and promote their products and services in the global market directly.
In other words, Chiu et al. (2014) also stated that in online business, there is no need to develop a site in every language as people globally easily understand and uses English language. The importance of e-commerce development is that in global market, every customer can identify the required products and services directly at home without moving from one place to another place. In today’s market, the e-commerce importance has developed because there are very simple and easy policies which are convenient and useful for the customer to understand. The ecommerce policy related to return of product is very simple because in this service, business don’t let customer wait to exchange the product for 30 days.
Rose et al. (2012) also added his point of view by stating that e-commerce has became a important part for daily operating retail business around the world and its best example is Amazon, flipkart and so on. However, today’s developing environment is such powerful and effective that small entrepreneur and new entrant are easily targeting the customers globally for which they don’t require a few capital investments in comparison to owning a shop for business respectively. At the same time, Pantano (2014) also identified that E-commerce’s technology are not only stick to the retail sector but it also widely used by the banking and financial institutions. That’s banks are operating its operations in today scenario at global market. The banks uses centralized IT system for improving its services and it also incorporates the cloud based system in order to protect the unauthorized access of information with the false actions. In recent scenario, the new concept has been emerged which is known as E-banking. In this, all banking services, transactions are performed online without interfere of any intermediaries. Thus, this helps to reduce the cost and false practices in financial activities. Based on this study, it is stated that E-commerce’s significances is not only stays till the retail sector but it also provide benefits to the financial sector also in regards to transfer of funds and availability of finance at any time and place. These facilities make the life of individual quite easy. Therefore, e-commerce’s is helpful for the people to make the work life balances in regards to focus both the personal and professionals lives.
In the study of Huang and Benyoucef (2013), it is depicted that E-commerce technology is not only prove to be beneficial for the sectors but it also support to the consumers in different ways. Likewise, the online procedure is quite eco-friendly for the consumers in regards to make a just one click for getting the information. In this, person can buy the product from anywhere and at every time. In a similar manner, consumer can also compare the price and product quality from other company data sheet and then make an appropriate choice of buying a particular product. Moreover, consumer also get a two option while payment such as cash on delivery and digital payment. So in that case to avoid the false action, the consumer can use the cash on delivery after receiving the product. This way the benefits of e-commerce attract individuals a lot towards using this technology. Hence, such significances of E-commerce’s push new entrepreneur to start up their business at online platform. This practice is not limit this only as people in current scenario shifting its existing business at digital platform. In short, new markets have emerged because of e-commerce’s platform which gives an opportunity to explore different areas and covers global market.
2.3 Limitations of e-commerce
It is true that e-commerce’s has become the most popular medium of contact to target customer and then sale the product and receive feedback on the goods. At the same time, it offers lots of benefits to both buyer and seller but it is also not free from the disadvantage (Bani and zadeh Ashrafi, 2015). However, security is the main concern area which becomes a limitation for an e-commerce’s. There are various areas where people still does not believe to use this technology due to less in security. Moreover, organizations use the e-commerce’s practices a lot and shift the business into such platform but reality is that none of the business completely relies on the digital areas as every company keeps some documentation for recording the information. On the other hand, consumers also faced the problem of security as online system does not allow the face-to-face contact with individuals and the touch and feel of product is also not exist. Thus, these areas make people hesitate to blindly follow the online platform. This study clearly shows that security is still becoming a critical concern for the companies as well as for the individuals. In context to Aldrin (2017), legal issue is another limitation that restricts the e-commerce’s business. Likewise, companies need to follow lots of compliances and cyber laws in the case to perform the e-commerce business. The regulations are varies county to country. So, to successfully fulfillment of legislation in particular market create several challenges for the company. Besides that, there is also a limitation face when it comes to technical faults and errors. Under e-commerce, the chance of technical failure is more if company does not use of advanced technology platform. It is occurred through numerous ways such as lack of proper domain, network and software issues and these areas affect the performances of e-commerce site. Moreover, there is lots of money is required to invest for incorporating the technology. Company also needs to upgrade the e-commerce as per the changing technology. Thus, these limitations of e-commerce restrict the organization and society to completely rely on such technology.
2.4 Current e-commerce trends and developments
The e-commerce market trends is changing very rapidly in the competitive environment where customers are demanding more satisfactory products and services at their place in a minimum time period. In the research study of Appari and Johnson (2010), clearly stated that e-commerce business is influenced the in-store purchases by up to 56 % which is also increasing with the increase or change in the development of e-commerce trends respectively. In recent years, the world economy has successfully accepting the development of e-commerce trends and e-payment services efficiently. In order to increase the sales, the most of the companies are also adopting and expanding their business to global market by selling their product online for targeting the other countries customers effectively.
As per to this figure, retail sector has achieved more improvements with the e-commerce’s technology. Likewise, sales are booming year after year from 2014 to 2021. It is also expected that e-commerce strategy will also get high recognition in future also due to increasing people interest area towards the online platform.
Currently, e-commerce business in the competitive market is booming year to year because now customers are purchasing the products and services directly from the e-commerce sites. It is clear identified that now customers are becoming more choosey and demanding regarding the products and its price and quality too. There are different numbers of e-commerce sites which are offering their customers with the different choices of preferences, market trends and targeting different geographical market, and so on. Nowadays, e-commerce developing companies are focusing more towards improving the user experience for online shopping services.
In developing technological environment, e-commerce technology is successfully operated by the companies in different geographical location. For example, in India, e-commerce has achieved a large market place in order to target and provide customers with preferred choice of products & services. However, in India, e-commerce industry is growing rapidly at an outstanding rate and also expected to grow in future by 1.61% of global GDP rate in year 2018. While studying, it is also observed that currently, e-commerce is moving around the world drastically in order to give rise to the customer experience of purchasing product online.
According to Benavides-Velasco et al. (2013), e-commerce has created a huge momentum in the economy which is undoubtedly increasing the growth graph curve in a positive manner. This e-commerce trends has been followed very business in order to reach the customers directly for which companies has developed effective strategies which help them to attract more numbers of customers towards their e-commerce sites such as exchanges and return policy and assistance to virtual sales, e-commerce messenger app and many more. In addition, Jordan (2014) also clearly determines that e-mobile app service also raised e-commerce market trend. However, this technology makes business to change its strategies like it now focus more on the E-Mobile technology to attract the customers. For instance, companies send the images of product with price to the loyal customers. This strategy helps the business to retain the customers for a longer duration.
The reason behind the increase in use of e-mobile service is that there are large numbers of customers who are using the mobile & tablets on t a regular basis for different purpose like for message, calling and most important now for purchasing the product online. Mostly, companies are focusing towards developing their relationship with customers and also investing more on advertising in order to attract customers to visit their sites and experience their services. The e-commerce trend is developing in the market because now users becoming more techno-savvy and their whole life are becoming more demandable on developing technology services (Guimard et al., 2012).
In addition, there are some emerging e-commerce trends which are considered currently by the companies for targeting the customers efficiently. The e-commerce trends required to get support from other department such as PR trends, social media trends, and content marketing trends and so on. With the support of other department, it will become easy for the companies to make the customer great experience with the services and products offered and that ultimately develops the trust among the customers easily. The e-commerce technology and department support creates a positive environment which help the team to get connected with the customers authentically with audience and also achieve e-commerce goals easily. Besides that, e-initially commerce’s is used by the companies for only buying and selling of product but now there is new trend which is occurred behind use of e-commerce’s. This is the market research. Likewise, organizations largely use the e-commerce’s activities such as websites, social sites for getting an idea about the consumer taste and preferences. However, social sites like Facebook, twitter and many more become the latest trend in global market whether it is developed or developing countries. The social media allows the consumer to get the response of customers over the products and services. For instance, in case company wants to launch any product then in that case it can ask the customers for response. In that manner, it can bring improvements. Therefore, the use of social site become the current trend for market research and receives feedback from the target market.
Additionally, the e-commerce practice is not only stick to the providing products to the consumer. In the recent time, this technology is also spread in the service sector. The best example of such areas is the Cabs like Uber, Ola and many more. Based on the internet, consumer selects the car in which they want to travel. Besides that, the online service also growing to the buying grocery online and make AC or home appliances repair through contact online. Thus, these are the extension of e-commerce’s platform. These areas are currently high in demand.
Other than that, there is also growing trend of using the different payment apps such as Paypal, Paytm and many more. These apps reduce the requirement of rely on the cards like debit and credit card. An individual uses more Paytm and payment apps to make payment online as compare to use of cards. Furthermore, the implementation of site tends to become different due to increasing frauds, thefts issues in the online process. Now, the XAAS become the new pack leader. This brings opportunity to protect site from hackers and false activities. The new trend is become the use of cloud based computing over the on-site implementation. The cloud based system performs for everything as a service (XaaS) is a key player, software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) etc. These areas are properly addressed by the cloud based computing technology. Thus, this methodologies tend to trend a lot in especially 2017 as most of the companies are used this technology to evolve their services to reach at wider markets in a digital space.
Xiang and Gretzel (2010) in their study pointed that e-commerce’s has gain maximum acceptance in year 2017 as there is increasing trend of online platform in this year. However, large number of people shifts from the offline to online platform. E-commerce’s has boomed in the US and the Silicon Valley to nationwide startups of business at digital platform. That trend has slowly shifted to the Asian markets as corporate are targeted to increase the consumer base by attracting different cultural group. In a same manner, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation occurs as an e-commerce’s development advice. AI is linked to customer engagement and it is implemented in the online experiences of user with an intuitive online assistant. It means that consumer before buying the product always done certain research about the product or service. In this, intelligent online assistant help to choose the right product as the demand and need. This practice of companies becomes a trend as this practice satisfies the consumer in a wider manner. This technology is occur when user search about the product then the smart online assistant built system guide the user regarding where to click and how to step ahead. This way this assistant influences the consumers to buy the suitable product or service.
Based on this study, it is analyzed that there are huge trends and development arises in the e-commerce’s platform and many more will occur in future. Thus, the e-commerce network will go strong and covers the whole universe and every aspect of globe. Thus, this technology has a wider scope and opportunities which will benefit to organization, individuals, society and economy etc.
2.5 Future e-commerce Trends
The increasing craze of e-commerce platform clearly indicates the future trend. Likewise, it is fact that in future, e-commerce will become a necessity and important part for the individuals and this technology may cover all different areas such as B2B and several other innovations. The idea regarding future trends will be achieved through this study. It is estimated that retail e-commerce sales is reached to $2.290 trillion as compare to year 2017 (Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2012). Based on this, it is predicted that some 10.1% of all retail sales and are set to hit $4.479 trillion by 2021. At the same time, there are various sectors that can be entering into the e-commerce technology. These are the pharmaceutical and clothing lines. Likewise, there are still people not buy clothes online especially the ethnic one. In regards to this, e-commerce will be more personalized by aiming to provide the consumer with customized services. For this service, Amazon and Alibaba are the companies that are working really hard. Moreover, the e-commerce is also moving towards the consumer-to-business model from the current business-to-consumer model. This means that business provide the customized product to the consumer as per their specific needs. This approach has started in e-commerce technology but only in few segments like clothe and food. The chance of increasing the customization will be more in future at every segment under e-commerce. Thus, the personalization and customization will be the future trend in e-commerce.
This Pie chart clearly signifies that B2B will be the future trend in e-commerce. It is identified that Business-to-Business model is gaining more popularity in presence scenario. There is more chance to increase the B2B market in the across the globe due to increase of high competition. This will give rise to the innovation and technology etc.
Additionally, the cloud based system in e-commerce is also getting the high acceptance but still it is follows less by the companies due to less awareness and high costing. This innovation will also surely become a trend in future. This is because e-commerce platform tend to have a security and privacy issue. So, to address such, the cloud based computing will be the best option. Thus, cloud based solution will become the future trend. Besides that B2B innovation will also get more emphasis in future. This is because now only business start contacting to the suppliers, distributors on online basis by studying the reviews of their services. The best example of this innovation is the Quicker online company in which one individual can sell its used or old product to the required buyer. Thus, this innovation will get more focus by the large or small companies due to increasing tough competition in global market and this is the best method to save time and cost of company.
However, there are various development and evolutions that also give rise to the increasing trend of e-commerce in future. Likewise, storefront digitalizing is the best way to break the dominant of physical store comparison (Chan et al., 2012). Generally people prefer to shop offline due to touch the product and then identify the quality and neglect to shop online. The innovation of storefront digitalizing is nothing but a virtual mirror where customer looks himself and visualizes how they would look after wearing a particular product. This mirror stores the information about their likes and dislikes and according the new product outline will be arrived. This technology will also reduce the returns to a greater extent. This innovation will prove to be helpful to build the trust over the e-commerce in future. Furthermore, “direct social media purchase facilities” also keep the consumer interest on online activities in future. Likewise, social media websites like facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and twitter etc are already adopted this move by covering the sales over 60%. The customers now click on buy now button directly from the sale page and proceed for online payment. This practice allows the customer to easily access the product and related information. The craze of social sites will remain attracts the people from the online shopping and transactions.
Other than that, the innovation of augmented reality device is another evolution under the e-commerce and this will help the people to develop more faith on the online product or service. This technology works for say, if someone wants to decorate the home and have confusion regarding what to buy. Then, simply they can try the virtual objects whichever are visible at the website. This practice will help to visualize that what looks better on the home (Sharma, 2012). This is the best way to make the customer satisfied. So, this innovation also supports towards the maintaining the people trust over the e-commerce activities. Therefore, these evolutions or developments will allow to enhancing more e-commerce trend in future.
3. Conclusion
In this section, overall study will be concluded in which the main findings from the study will be summarized related to e-commerce technology and its future trends. The main findings are that there are various developments are increasing in the current e-commerce scenario. The voice assistance, storefront digitalizing are the areas that allows the consumer to attract more on the online platform. Besides that, e-commerce is now not only stay towards the selling or buying but it is emerging as a conduct market research, collection of feedback and comparison of product with other companies. These areas keep the customer loyal towards this technology. Due to its significance, the e-commerce will get positive trend in future. Other than that, the innovation of personalization and customization also develop a faith among the customers. Thus, these areas clearly reflect that the e-commerce will get more exposure in future and it stays over the longer duration. Hence, these are the main findings of the report.
However, this study also helped in developing an understanding regards that e-commerce development is very important for the companies as it assist them to increase their sales and profit and target the global market customers. Furthermore, this study also determined that currently, e-commerce market is at the growth stage of life cycle as e-commerce services are still developing and adopted by the companies.
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