Chapter 5, Problem 1LO

Program Plan Intro

Understanding current status of various forms of e-commerce.

Explanation of Solution

E-commerce is buying and selling of goods or services using electronic medium. There are various forms of e-commerce such as B2B e-commerce, B2C e-commerce, C2C e-commerce and m-commerce. The growth in e-commerce can be credited to the creation of World Wide Web in 1990s. Internet or World Wide Web is commonly used for e-commerce practices. The retail e-commerce sales are expected to grow by 20%. Following graphs shows the retail e-commerce sales worldwide.

The major forms of e-commerce which are at boom are B2B e-commerce and B2C e-commerce. The market of B2B e-commerce is currently double the market of B2C e-commerce. Global sales of B2B e-commerce is expected to reach $7.7 trillion which is double of that of B2C e-commerce. It is estimated that B2B firms will be spending more on e-commerce technologies then online retailers. Among B2C e-commerce category, most sales are seen in the apparel products and then in electronics and home décor. M-commerce is making its way fast in the e-commerce trends. An estimation projects that mobile will be reaching 70% of e-commerce traffic by end of 2018. The total revenue generated by m-commerce in the USA was $700 billion in 2017. C2C e-commerce is least popular among the other e-commerce trends and is increasing at a constant pace.