Abstract
E-commerce can be defined as all the electronic exchanges connected to the commercial activities. It recovers any operation of sale of goods and services via an electronic channel. Internet is thus only a support among the others of the e-commerce with, among others, the EDI (electronic data interchange), the telephone (Audiotel) or the television (Pay-Per-View). If the e-commerce is not a new phenomenon, the very fast development of Internet and NICTs brings in a new dimension, because it allows in theory to touch the world market at a lower cost.
This revolution comes along with an extension of the offer of the traditional goods, and the appearance of new types of goods (as the digital informative goods: software, electronic publications) and of new actors (Internet Service providers, search engines, gates (portals)). As such, the notion of e-commerce is becoming increasingly confused and reduced to the process of sale of goods and the services on the Internet, now it becomes integrated into the more general context of the business. Too often assimilated to only on-line transaction (the act of sale in itself), e-commerce includes in fact all the traditional stages of the sale, upstream (research of the customer, dissemination of commercial information, management of the orders, the delivery) as downstream (development of customer loyalty, after-sales service, relaunching). It requires the implementation of specific tools and the adaptation of the already existing structures within the company
