Talk:E-commerce

About e-commerce sites

SEX

I need some e-commerce sites for an IT assignment, and I need to know how they work catalogues, forms/orders etc. The one listed about "xpertcommerce" or something, links me to sign up, which I don't really want to do. Thanks much ^_^ User:Schwarzes_Nacht 9:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

This sort of question is probably best directed to the Wikipedia:Reference desk, though I have tried to add some links to other articles which may be more helpful in answering your question. The specific external link mentioned has since been removed; it sounds like it might have been link spam. -- Beland 19:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

An Estore whilst involved in commercial transactions cannot be classed in the same light as an ecommerce solution or other similar wording. With its base in the word store, it has to be seperated inthat it provides a tangible product. Whilst such a product may have association with intellectual property wrights, it is by natute a product where the delivery method differs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Barbarian1 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy

This article makes a lot of claims, but has few references. I'm concerned that much of the content was contributed by people just writing down things off the top of their heads, instead of basing it on published research. For instance, the idea that people would be reluctant to buy clothes online is logical, but in fact it's currently the most popular kind of thing to buy online. Actual statistics are needed to detail popularity. The section on "what makes an online business succeed" is particularly worrisome in its lack of grounding. -- Beland 19:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

This section is now at online shop. -- Beland 08:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Online catalog

I see the difference between e-business and e-commerce, but several other articles seem to overlap as well. Would Online catalog fit in this article? Online shop is another. I would probably merge both, or am I missing anything? Plinkit 05:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

So I've attempted to outline in the new "Forms" section, the various types of e-commerce which exist (and which the article should thus describe). The "selling physical things to you online and shipping them to you" concept is just one form, though it's arguably the one that most people think of when they hear the term "e-commerce". Given that some other kinds of e-commerce have their own article, it might been a good idea to make this a sort of overview article of e-commerce in general, and let there be a different, more detailed article on this "classic" concept. But this article needs a lot of cleanup right now, so maybe it will later make sense to just merge all of that here. Online shop and online catalog are both describing this "classic" concept, so I think they should be merged. -- Beland 19:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. I wonder if we could make a banner/template out of all of this? That could help. I think a lot of small articles would be fine if people simply knew when they got to them that there is broader information on the subjects. An E-commerce banner might work well, with many of the articles you just collected. Plinkit 21:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've just completed the merger of "virtual shopping" and "online catalog" with online shop, and moved some material between this article and the merged one. I think if we kill the "success factors" section, this article will be short enough that merging "online shop" here will be feasible. It probably makes sense to do that from a scoping perspective, unless there's a lot to say about e-commerce unrelated to online retail, which is missing from this article now? -- Beland 08:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, if you're able to do it, that's fine with me. The other merges look great. I'm not sure whether it's needed or not -- "Online shop" is somewhat of an unusual title though, which suggests it might go better here. I just looked at another article, eMarketplace, which seems largely promotional but might be included in this mix as well. I'll see if I can create a larger template like I mentioned. Plinkit 19:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

This is based on Template:Finance, how does it look? I assume we could find a better picture. Plinkit 20:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Replaced the picture... not perfect, but seems alright. Feel free to change as necessary. Plinkit 21:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Discuss Merge with Online Shop

Someone has suggested a merge with Online Shop. To start with it seems e-commerce is business focused and online shop is shopping focused. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.152.115.183 (talk) 23:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I had meant to remove that earlier today. I suggested instead that online shop be changed to online shopping, which seems like a broad topic by itself. I think that will be ok. Plinkit 00:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

B2B

The article talks solely about the B2C aspect of eCommerce and I was missing info on the B2B side. Is that covered elsewhere? Cheers --Jesco dalquen (talk) 11:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

First prototype transaction

Back in mid-1994, I was working at what was then Lockheed's Artificial Intelligence Center in Palo Alto, CA. The Missiles and Space Division in San Jose had a state-of-the-art cable manufacturing system, and the AI Center had produced some nifty intelligent cable routing software. Hisup Park was both a Lockheed employee and also a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford. He put together a project to prototype a system whereby Lockheed could offer cable manufacturing services over the web. The idea seems rather odd now, but at the time it was quite compelling. We ran a single exercise to illustrate the process. The documentation of this exercise is still accessible at Stanford: http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/acaps/acaps.html

I believe that, even though this was a rather unusual exercise and just a one-off demonstration, it may have been the first actual transaction to qualify as web-based e-commerce. -Lane Wimberley 66.90.152.4 (talk) 02:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

large section was cut - why?

Large section was cut from this article. I was surprised because the reference to Https (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer)seems important to the historical development of e-commerce. Here's the cashed version retrieved by Google - only the part which was cut from current article:

Web development

When the Web first became well-known among the general public in 1994, many journalists and pundits forecast that e-commerce would soon become a major economic sector. However, it took about four years for security protocols (like HTTPS) to become sufficiently developed and widely deployed. Subsequently, between 1998 and 2000, a substantial number of businesses in the United States and Western Europe developed rudimentary web sites.

In the dot com era, electronic commerce came to include activities more precisely termed "Web commerce" -- the purchase of goods and services over the World Wide Web, usually with secure connections with e-shopping carts and with electronic payment services such as credit card payment authorizations.

Although a large number of "pure" electronic commerce companies disappeared during the dot-com collapse in 2000 and 2001, many "brick-and-mortar" retailers recognized that such companies had identified valuable niche markets (need for a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers) and began to add e-commerce capabilities to their Web sites. For example, after the collapse of online grocer Webvan, two traditional supermarket chains, Albertsons and Safeway, both started e-commerce subsidiaries through which consumers could order groceries online.

The emergence of electronic commerce also significantly lowered barriers to entry in the selling of many types of goods; many small home-based proprietors are able to use the internet to sell goods. Often, small sellers use online auction sites such as eBay, or sell via large corporate websites like Amazon.com, in order to take advantage of the exposure and setup convenience of such sites.

$259 billion of online sales including travel are expected in 2007 in USA, an 18% increase from the previous year, as forecasted by the State of Retailing Online 2007 report from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Shop.org.[1]

Currently there are 67 Fortune 1000 companies that have ecommerce revenues greater than $10 million. The 5 largest Internet retailers are Amazon, Staples, Office Depot, Dell, and Hewlett Packard. This indicates that the top categories of products sold on the Internet are books, music, office supplies, computers, and other consumer electronics. A list of Fortune 1000 companies ranked by ecommerce revenues can be found on AListNet. [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.116.143 (talk) 16:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

selling products through several targeted domains

Note: the following discussion was copied to here from my talk page to encourage input from other interrested parties. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Please reconsider the removal of the content I added to E-tail. The content is no less relevant then the mention of CSN Stores or NetShops which are also mentioned on that page. Morganeason (talk) 13:33, 08 June 2009 (PST)

The e-tail article shouldn't contain an all-inclusive timeline of every electronic commerce event. Rather, it should show signifficant events in the history of electronic commerce. From what I can see, CSN and NetShops both formally began their business models about a year before ATG stores was formally created to sell products through several targeted domains. The companies that eventually became ATG Stores were created prior to the others; but at the time those were created, there doesn't appear to be the business model of multiple targeted domains. --23:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. Both CSN Stores and NetShops started with a single domain like ATG Stores. NetShops - Hammocks.com in 2002 and CSN Stores - RacksandStands.com in 2002. Both of these were created 2 years after the creation of ATG Stores first site LightingUniverse.com in 2000. FixtureUnivese.com was also created in 2002 in essence giving ATG Stores more domains sooner then both of the companies currently included in the article. All three companies currently follow the same business model and ATG Stores was the first of these three companies to exist with multiple targeted domains. Perhaps as a fair alternative all references to specific company profiles should be removed from the page? Thank you very much. I appericate you discussing this with me. --23:48, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It may be better to move the discussion to the talk page of the article. Given the information you provided, this could be argued one of three ways: remove mention of specific companies and only state that the use of multiple targeted domains by a single organization began in 2002 (my least favorite option); or add ATG stores along with the others; or if the other two trully did not have multiple domains until later years, to only list ATG stores. Personally, I would want to research the three businesses a bit closer ... but perhaps the talk page of the article can encourage others to add their views as well.

I'll post over there and start the discussion. For now, I think all three should be mentioned in the article until consensus can be reached for removing any. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The other thing that may be important to note as part of this discussion is how significant each company has become on the e-commerce landscape. I looks like both CSN Stores and NetShops were included in Internet Retailer's 2009 Top 100 e-commerce companies (CSN at #63 with $263 million in sales last year, and NetShops #83 with $186M in sales). I did not see ATG Stores listed in book, but that could be an oversight on their part. Anyone know how big ATG Stores was in 2008? It looks like they were listed at #412 in the 2007 Inc. 500 with $33 million in sales, but that's all I could find. One other question - how fast did CSN Stores and NetShops move beyond their first domain? On the CSN Stores page, it says after starting in August 2002 they added 3 sites in the second year and 9 in the third year. It's less descriptive on the the NetShops site, but seems like a similar story. It seems like those two may have pioneered the business model and others (including ATG) followed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.97.94.34 (talk) 12:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello 38.97.94.34, inclusion into the IR 2009 lists is optional for all companies and private companies not wishing to disclose their financials may choose not to be included. As far as who pioneered the business model it's unlikely in the beginning that any of the three companies knew about any of the others until each had several domain. It's more likely three separate companies came up with the same idea each independently from each other. My opinion is that all three companies should be removed from the page as the start of these companies is not in line with the significance of other events noted in the time like the first web browser or the start of Amazon.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Morganeason (talk • contribs) 22:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

e-commerce

what are the advantages of e-commerce?

e-commerce

what are the advantages of e-commerce? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.176.3.1 (talk) 05:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Found reference

I found a reference for the Pizza Hut mention in the timeline. It is on Google and I wanted to share it with you. I might add it as a citation some day on the article, but if you want to, please go ahead and do it. :)

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PtkSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=afwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3003%2C2673206

Kushal (talk) 21:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Minitel 1982

I have been trying to find evidence that Minitel in 1982, the year that it was launched by France Telecom, provided an ordering facility at that time and the details of anyone who used it. The ordering claim needs citation for verification.

Santanaquintass (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted Censorship

This page has been censored. A section has been removed on the alleged grounds of spam. It was nothing of the sort. It was censorship hindering examination of a serious subject.

The same editor Flowanda has deleted from the history of ecommerce the name of the inventor of online shopping on the grounds of inadequate sourcing. This touches on the issue of whether a source has to be peer-reviewed which some in this community believe.

The claim of invention is indeed made by the inventor, Michael Aldrich in the Aldrich Archive at the University of Brighton. Much of the archive is digitised and has been open to the public since December 2009.http://www.aldricharchive.com I reviewed the evidence and concluded that it was a strong claim. see, Discussion, Michael Aldrich. The claim is repeated by the City of Gateshead and the University of Brighton but it has not been peer-reviewed. It was only discovered in 2008. Ironically Gateshead's use of Aldrich's system can be found in a peer-reviewed journal. His name is not mentioned but his photo appears alongside the piece under another heading! If only sourcing were simple.Santanaquintass (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC).

Editing is not censorship. This discussion should be continued at Talk:Michael Aldrich. Johnuniq (talk) 10:54, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I have restored the part of the History section that was deleted. See Talk:Michael Aldrich and the article Michael Aldrich for more information. The discussion continues.Santanaquintass (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)