Page 40 - Electronic Commerce

Introduction to Electronic Commerce

The Third Wave of Electronic Commerce, 2010–Present
15
In 2010, a number of factors came together to start a third wave in the development of
electronic commerce. Some of these factors include:
• A critical mass of mobile users with powerful devices (smartphones and
tablets) that, for the first time, allowed them to interact online with busi-
nesses along with proliferation of high-speed mobile phone networks
throughout the world that provide useful connections among users and
companies
• Widespread participation in social networking platforms combined with
businesses’ increased willingness to use them for advertising, promotion,
and sales
• Increased online participation by smaller businesses in sales, purchasing, and
capital-raising activities
• Highly sophisticated analysis of the large amounts of data that companies
collect about their online customers
• Increased integration of tracking technologies into B2B electronic commerce
and the management of business processes within companies

Emergence of Mobile Commerce
Since about 2001, industry analysts have been predicting the emergence of mobile
telephone-based commerce (often called mobile commerce or m-commerce) every year.
And year after year, they were surprised that the expected development of mobile
commerce did not occur. The limited capabilities of mobile telephones were a major
impediment until very recently.
In the third wave of electronic commerce, mobile commerce is finally taking off with
the increasingly widespread use of mobile phones that allow Internet access and
smartphones. Smartphones are mobile phones that include a Web browser, a full
keyboard, and an identifiable operating system that allows users to run various software
packages. These phones are available with usage plans that include very high or even
unlimited data transfers at a fixed monthly rate.
Another technological development was the introduction of tablet computers. These
handheld devices are larger than a smartphone but smaller than a laptop computer.
Most tablet computers (and smartphones) can connect to the Internet through a
wireless phone service carrier or a local wireless network. This flexibility is important,
especially if the wireless data plan restricts the amount of data that can be downloaded.
The availability of these devices and the low cost of Internet connectivity have made
mobile commerce possible on a large scale for the first time. Leading online business
research firms, including Forrester and BI Intelligence, estimate mobile commerce to
be about $10 billion in 2013 but expect rapid growth to levels between $30 billion and
$60 billion by 2016.
One force driving the growth in global online sales to consumers is the ever-increasing
number of people who have access to the Internet. Today, billions of people around the
world still do not have computers and, therefore, do not have computer access to the

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