Ch. 4 eBay – founded in 1995, 89 million people from 39 countries

Amazon – founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, grown from garage-based online book seller to one of world’s largest retailers for everything  2001 – sales topped $48 billion

Online shopping spread to China in form of Taobao & 360buy.com Taobao – founded in 2003 by Alibaba, 8 years later had 370 million registered users, more than population of U.S.  Taobao Marketplace – China’s eBay, dominates country’s online customer-to-customer (C2C) e-commerce business with 90% market share  Taobao Mall – separate site; renowned brands sell directly to customers in business-to-customer (B2C)  2011 – 3rd most visited site in China, 15th most visited in world, gross merchandise volume of $60 billion  eBay 2011 - $53 billion and 22nd most visited site

Alipay – 3rd party online payment platform affiliated with Alibaba, partners with more than 65 financial institutions, supports transactions in 12 major foreign currencies

Electric Commerce (EC) – exchange of goods, services, & money among firms, between forms & their customers, and between customers, supported by communication technologies &, in particular, the Internet  Can involve events leading up to purchase of product as well as customer service after the sale  No limited to transactions between businesses & customers (B2C)  Used to conduct business with business partners such as suppliers & intermediaries (B2B)

Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce reported total U.S. annual retail sales in 2011 increased 8% from 2010, online retail sales up by 15% and EC accounted for 4.6% of total retail sales, resulting in sales of more than $193.7 billion  Only traditional online retail sales & not auction sales, movie & music rentals, or sales through online classifieds eMarketer – research firm forecasts steady growth, U.S. retail e-commerce sales to exceed $360 billion by 2016

According to U.S. Census Bureau, B2B EC is by far largest form of EC in terms of revenues

Customer-to-Customer (C2C) – form of EC that doesn’t involve business firms; eBay

Customer-to-Business (C2B) – customers offer products, labor, & services to companies

Table 4.1

M-Commerce (mobile commerce) – any electronical transaction or information interaction conducted using a wireless, mobile device & mobile networks that leads to the transfer of real or perceived value in exchange for information, services, or goods

Global Information Dissemination – economical medium for firms to market their profucts & services over vast distances

Integration – via Web sites that can be linked to corporate databases to provide real-time access to personalized information

Table 4.2

Yield Management – most current fares are disseminated in real-time on the company’s Web site (air transport industry)