All About E-Commerce With Michael Helton, MBA E-Commerce Business Manager AT&T
E-Commerce Quick Facts What is eCommerce? ◦ Simply Stated- The buying and selling of goods and services over the Internet Estimated Transactions in 2013 for the U.S. alone totaled more than 1.2 trillion Today more than 40% of the world’s population has shopped online ◦ More than 1 Billion shoppers ◦ 93% of Americans
E-Commerce Quick Facts Mobile E-Commerce transactions accounted for more than 38 billion dollars The items that drive the most revenue: retail (clothing), computers & cars There are more than 500 billion E- Commerce sites to date
How Did it All Begin? Did you know the first online ‘transaction’ took place in the 1960s called EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)? Its not what we know today. Invoices, Orders and other documents were electronically transmitted The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) came up with something called ASC X12, a universal standard for sharing business documents over electronic networks. * Howstuffworks.com
How Did it All Begin? Greatest evolution was in 1982 with the development of Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) This is the same foundational technology that powers the Internet today In 1990, a researcher named Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, from its French name) proposed a hypertext-based web of information that a user could navigate using a simple interface called a browser. He called it the "WorldWideWeb” * Howstuffworks.com
How Did It All Begin? Mosaic was the first browser 1994 – Netscape 1.0 was released to the masses was the 2 most popular transactions were taken via First Virtual & CyberCash
The Transformation Begins… 1995 the first book was sold out of Jeff Bezos garage- within 30 days books were sold to all 50 states & 45 countries ◦ Amazon focused on: convenience, availability, ease of ordering/shipping, cost Ebay also revolutionized E-Commerce as anyone could buy and sell online.- The worlds largest yard sale ◦ With only 2 full time employees Ebay made over 7.2 million in 1996 alone by the next year, the company grew nearly 93% *businessinsider.com
How E-Commerce Has Changed Business Availability to the masses There are very few items you cannot buy online today try and think of some The power of convenience at our fingertips Every part of our lives is or can be impacted by E-Commerce (travel, entertainment, food, clothing, vehicles etc.) B2B purchases help provide a competitive network for vendors
A Quick Look from the Consumer Side Benefits Easy We can find anything Time Efficient Competitive Pricing Challenges Its sometimes hard to judge what you are getting Time to receive your item varies You pay before you receive Shipping fees
A Quick Look from the Business Side Benefits Easy Low Overhead Ability to Reach Exponential Customer Base Low to no taxes Challenges Logistics Sometimes harder to manage customer service issues Business is dependent on many non-controlled variables (internet connectivity, ecommerce functionalities etc.) Optimization & Extremely saturated markets
Current to Expected Growth World-wide