In the late 1970's business houses began sending & receiving Purchase orders, invoices,

& shipping notifications electronically via EDI. The EDI then was expensive & affordable

only by big sized businesses. Today the Internet has made electronic commerce affordable

to even smallest home office. Companies of all sizes can now communicate over the Internet

with each other.

ERP and EDI have gained tremendous importance as the world is gearing itself towards

strong business process integration. And time is near for the paper-based business to give

Way to electronic business when suppliers and customers will transact electronically.

Once isolated economies are now slowly integrating into a global village. This is also so

because suppliers are working hard to offer products / services at lower and lower prices.

To offer at lower and lower prices, cost saving, cost cutting is essential. By reducing

and even eliminating Inventory & distribution costs dramatically the total cost of

products/services are lowered by electronic commerce. In many cases online prices will be

lower than what consumers find elsewhere. Consumers already find huge bargains on air travel

on the net. In some cases prices are down to half. How all of this is possible is because

the customer and the supplier are now becoming easily accessible through the net. Take the

case of Amazon.com. It has no warehouses. It only routes book orders directly to distributors

and delivers a book at a price that is much less that what a regular books stores can offer.

Law firms can access specific sections on the Net instead of buying endless volumes of

legal references. Similarly music lovers can download music software online and also make

payments electronically. What we are seeing is that customers and suppliers have moved much closer in this new sales channel.

Seattle, America's emerald city is found to be quick becoming the electronic commerce capital

of the Web. It has the greatest concentration of Internet commerce powerhouses. As early

as 1994, Andrew Fry, founded Free Range Media, which is one of the first websites development

firms in the US. During this time Jeff Bezoz, who practically invented online commerce,

founded the Internet shop Amazon.com from a garage of a rented home. Amazon.com is today selling over

57000 books each day. Before starting Amazon.com, Jeff was working on Wall Street and saw

Internet growth statistics @ 2300% per year. He worked on a list of best products to sell on

the Internet. Today with about 45% stake in the company he is worth atleast an easy

$ 2 billion. It is reported that Amazon .com is the 3rd largest bookseller in the World

and may see revenues top $ 600 million in 1999 without opening a single brick and mortar

store. The major competitor for Amazon.com is Barnes & Noble's online venture. It is felt that

Amazon.com is poised to translate it success in books & music into other lucrative products.

Many analysts now call Jeff as one of the Bill Gateses of tomorrow.

A number of software companies are into electronic commerce business developing electronic

commerce applications. Microsoft Corporation, founded by Bill Gates in 1975 employs more than

27000 people worldwide, is stated to earn over $ 14.5 billion per year. However it was

surprisingly caught late in the growth of e-commerce. In recent times it has taken dramatic

steps to become a dominant player in electronic commerce. The company was in a business war with Netscape on its Internet explorer browser
software for quite some time. Microsoft two year

old travel site Edpedia has sold over 1 million air tickets on it store front & through

Partner sites fetching in $ 8.5 million per week. CarPoint is one of the leading Car buying

services on the Net delivering $200 million per month in new car sales to partner auto dealers.

Real estate services site Home Advisor has produced $ 30 million in loan referrals to

mortgage lenders since Aug 98.

Many ex-Microsoft, Ex-Amazonian executives have started companies to capture electronic

commerce business on the Internet. Other companies engaged in electronic commerce are

also building profitable & manageable businesses. Electronic commerce companies are

one of the biggest and flourishing business in the software industry today. Many companies

are launching their websites in order to boost sales and get closer access to the consumers.

Icat Corporation founded in 1993 provides Corporations and merchants with information,

software and services they need to set up electronic catalogs. It is one of the Hot 100

Technology Companies in the US. Hewlett Packard's Openpix Image Igniter, imaging software

is part of its e-commerce suite which enables store fronts to feature interactive product

photos what customers can zoom in and pan through for a more powerful online shopping

experience. There are photoshops such as Corbis (which is owned by Microsoft) and Photodisc

which together offer over 2 million images online to marketers and publishers around the globe.

One can order music software over the net and enjoy it one a streamlined media technology

software like those provided by Real Networks's Real Audio. A number of Websites are created

with compelling content that gets people online. While the current work has contributed much

to the growth of electronic commerce several entrepreneurs are developing award winning

websites to attract visitors from young and old.

Going by the trend of electronic commerce, Chuck Martin, the best selling author of

'Net Future :The Seven Cybertrends That Will Drive Your Business, Create Wealth, and

Define Your Future.' and the 'Digital Estate' remarks that "the world stands on the cusp of

a new era where most traditional business models will disappear and the wired consumer and

the wired organization will function in harmony". He also writes "A company's grasp of these

Cyber trends and it consequent willingness to transform its business will determine how well

it survives".

As the wired situation is increasing, it can create higher levels of operational efficiency,

which basically reduces cost and saves money for the end consumer. As the supply and demand

positions move online, demand can be aggregated in real time. Onsale.com a website for online

auctions aggregates supply by grouping all kinds of things for auctioning & then offers

people for bidding. On the other hand Priceline.com aggregates price bids of people for

products/ services. What happens actually is much more real supply and real demand match,

which takes a lot of waste out of the value chain. The Internet has vastly expanded the value

of goods and services business trade electronically. The Internet era has revolutionized

commerce, making electronic commerce a reality. The major force of electronic commerce is

driven by the fact that it results in lowering purchasing cost, a reduction of inventories,

lowering cycle time, more efficient & effective customer services, lowering sales & marketing

cost and new sales opportunities.

While Information Technology grows faster and faster, the consumer is soon to find the

shopping centre, rights into his living room on the monitors of his PC. The list of

products / services traded through the electronic media is fast growing. And many more

products and services are bought or sold over the net. There are a number of software which

are either developed or being developed, enabling the growth of electronic commerce .