Abstract
What exactly is e-commerce ? It's an example of one of the many buzzwords that are used concerning the internet that no one really knows the definition. E-commerce refers to selling, advertising and marketing products, all done over the internet.
In other words, the e-commerce allows to conclude an agreement (services or goods) in an electronic form (without any concrete support) thanks to an interactive communication. It also permits to deliver or to download goods and services after having paid a certain price.
E-commerce has to respect the consumer's law and especially the right, for 7 days, to retract an agreement.
The impact of e-commerce is particularly wide : it concerns and affects consumers, managers, traditional commerce and even other branches of economy. Nevertheless, one has to underline that even today the main issue around the impact of e-commerce is mainly to measure this impact and even to know whether it is going to have an impact or not.
E-commerce changes the business environnement. Its leads to different intermediaries, new products, new markets, and new business-consumer relationships as well as new channels for diffusing knowledge and for interaction in the workplace.
E-commerce accelerates changes already under way : regulatory reform, the globalisation of economic activity, the demand for higher-skilled workers.
At present, electronic commerce is relatively small (some $26 billion) but it may approach a trillion dollars by 2003-2005.
E-commerce includes B-to-C commerce and B-to-B commerce. Each segment of e-commerce has a different impact on our lives.
The near term and future growth of e-commerce is likely to be determined by the B2B segment, which now accounts for at least 80% of total e-commerce activity.
