Part A: E-commerce in terms of Business to Customer Models
Business to consumer models refers to a type of business where consumers buy end products directly from businesses. In this type of model, the businesses market directly to consumers and facilitate low purchase volumes of higher priced products. By eliminating wholesale purchasers, the business can maximize profits while the consumer spends the same amount of money, or even less.
E-commerce refers to business where consumers purchase products or pay for services using the internet. It has revolutionized the Business-to-Consumer models by allowing businesses to advertise directly to their consumers. The business to consumer model was first recognized in the 1990s, referred to as the dotcom business era (Hortacsu, 2015). During the era, businesses strived to acquire web presence to reach whole new demography of consumers. Companies like Amazon, which acquired a web presence back in the 90s went ahead and developed websites to market their products online.
Business-to-consumer companies are further categorized into five types: advertising-based models, direct sellers, and online intermediaries among other companies. Direct sellers refer to online traders who sell their products or offer services directly to their consumers through a website. A typical direct seller company often ship products from their warehouses and trigger deliveries from stock from other companies (Hortacsu, 2015).
Online intermediaries work as any other brokers; they allow non-B2C companies to reap some of the benefits. Online intermediaries typically offer the buyer service and help sellers by altering the process of setting prices. Therefore, buyers will purchase through the broker, who will then acquire the product from the seller and deliver to the buyer.
Advertising-based models comprise popular websites; they often offer consumers free services and use advertising revenue to cover the cost. Through the free service, these companies draw a huge following, thereby creating a huge platform for advertising companies to use. The companies will then pay to use the platform.
Part B: Evolution and Future of E-commerce
Evolution of e-commerce
E-commerce began in the 70s, with the emergence of electronic funds transfer, and electronic data interchange. ETF allowed for funds to be transferred electronically from one organization to another. EDIs, on the other hand, were used in transferring customary documents that later grew electronic funds transfer from commercial operations to processing of other transactions. Although the internet—the core of e-commerce—came in the late 60s, e-commerce did not take off until the coming of the World Wide Web and other browsers in the 90s.
In 1984, EDI—electronic data interchange—was regulated, thus assuring companies to transact reliably with each other. In 1992, CompuServe provided retail products online to its consumers, implying that its customers could now buy products using their computers. In 1994, Netscape offered simple browsers for surfing the internet and perform secure online transactions using the Secure Stocks Layer technology. In 1995, two of the current largest e-commerce businesses, Amazon and eBay were launched, giving people a variety of products to purchase over the internet. In 1997, Digital Subscriber Line provided the first always-on internet service to subscribers, allowing people to spend more time on the internet and transact more (Hortacsu, 2015).
Future of e-commerce
Towards the end of the 20th century, experts predicted an outstanding future for e-commerce in the coming century. E-commerce is predicted to validate itself as a key sales platform. E-shopping continues to be more popular as time goes by; the popularity is attributed to the fierce competition between rivals in the e-commerce industry. E-commerce is predicted to be the industrial revolution of the 21st century, with the number of e-commerce deals growing exceptionally over the years. Sales of online stores continue to surpass those of physical stores as more people are becoming immersed in work, yet the internet spares time and provides opportunities to pick products with the best rates
Part C: Existing and Continuing Threats to the Security of E-commerce
Some of the threats faced by e-commerce are accidental while others are intentional. Intentional threats are mostly engineered by fraudsters who plan on stealing, breaching security or defrauding other over the internet. Since e-commerce relies heavily on the internet, fraudsters and scammers pose a threat by scaring away potential consumers from engaging in e-commerce.
One of the threats to e-commerce involved poor management. With poor security, networks become vulnerable to attacks. Some security threats often occur if businesses do not allocate enough budget to purchase antiviruses and firewalls that are required to keep fraudsters from manipulating consumers.
Another threat to e-commerce involves price manipulation. Price manipulation is often done when a user installs lower price into a URL. The main reason for price manipulation is stealing. Such users take advantage that the e-commerce system is fully automated from the first step to the last. With the installation of a lower price URL, the e-commerce software will not detect alteration of the price to stop the transaction from occurring. Instead, it will proceed with the transaction with the manipulated price URL and hence provide the user with the product at a lower price than intended.
Malicious code threats form the most vicious threat to e-commerce. Viruses can corrupt files in an entire e-commerce software once they find their way into the software. Apart from destroying the computer system, viruses can damage the entire network and hence interfere with the business entirely. While viruses need host computers to launch them into an e-commerce network, worms are present over the internet and require no one to launch them. Worms, like viruses, can wipe out an entire e-commerce network and are more dangerous than viruses.
Wi-Fi eavesdropping is a type of cyber-crime where malicious individuals listen into and steal other people’s personal data. The threat is most common over public Wi-Fi. After stealing personal data, these malicious individuals may use information such as credit card details to defraud their unsuspecting cyber-prey. The issue poses as a threat to e-commerce since victims might lose faith in e-commerce and lead to dwindling markets for e-commerce.
- Hortacsu, A. &. (2015). The ongoing evolution of US retail: A format tug-of-war. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 89-112.
