Page 49 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

26 1 Overview of Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

Another important factor is the increase in mobile devices and 2. Describe some of the benefits of studying EC.
especially smartphones. EC growth would come not only from 3. How can EC help entrepreneurship?
B2C, but also from B2B and from newer applications such as 4. Summarize the major points involved with the future of
e-government, e-learning, B2E, social commerce, and c-com- e-commerce.
merce. The total volume of EC has been growing every year by
10–16% in spite of the failures of individual companies and
initiatives and the economic slowdown. 1.8 OVERVIEW OF THIS BOOK
Finally, different business environment factors facilitate
EC (see Online File W1.4). This book is composed of 12 chapters grouped into five
The future of EC depends on technological, organizational, parts, as shown in Figure 1.8. Additional content, including
and societal trends (e.g., see Fei and Chung 2015). Piastro online supplemental material for each chapter, is available
(2010) lists the top 10 trends that are shaping the future of online on the book’s website (ecommerce-introduction-
e-commerce and Gartner Inc., publishes a list of the “Top 10 textbook.com).
Strategic Technology Trends” every year. See gartner.com/ The specific parts and chapters of this textbook are as
newsroom/id/2603623 for 2014. Both the 2014 and 2015 lists follows:
include several EC topics (e.g., mobile apps, Internet of
Things). See also McCafferty (2016) for the top trends of 2016.
A final note: The future of EC depends on the accessibil- Part I: Introduction to E-Commerce
ity to the Internet. Facebook’s laser drones could bring the and E-Marketplaces
Internet to five billion people (see CBS 2015).
This part of the book includes an overview of EC and its con-
tent, benefits, limitations, and drivers, which are presented in
SECTION 1.7 REVIEW QUESTIONS Chapter 1. Chapter 2 presents electronic markets and their
mechanisms, such as electronic catalogs and auctions. This
1. List the major technological and non-technological barri- chapter also includes a presentation of Web 2.0 tools of social
ers and limitations to EC. networks, and some emerging technologies.

Figure 1.8 Plan of the book