User:John121387654321/sandbox

E-Commerce platform
E-Commerce platform (electronic commerce platform) is a digital platform that business owners can utilise to sell their products online. The E-Commerce platforms that vendors offer vary widely and their degree of attraction to business owners vary as different platforms have different advantages and disadvantages. The first E-Commerce platform, Amazon.com was released to the public in 1991 and became the world's largest E-Commerce platform. Online stores help business owners increase sales and the level of exposure of their product and brand as E-Commerce platforms appeal to a wider range of potential customers as users through the internet. Consumers use e-commerce platforms as an alternative for purchasing goods and services, this is known as online shopping or internet shopping. Because purchasing goods and money transactions on E-Commerce platforms are conducted online, consumers who prefer convenience and productivity often choose it over shopping in retail stores.

History
The fundamentals of establishing E-Commerce platforms were built on top of the invention of the technologies Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), it is with the help of these two technologies, users of the internet can order and pay money for goods and services through the internet. Although the technologies appeared in the 1970s, the first E-Commerce platform appeared in the 1990s after the internet was open to commercial use.

United States became the first country to adopt the internet as the main medium for transmitting data in 1983. Introduction of the GUI, HTML and World Wide Web components of the internet created more possibilities for growth for internet companies. The National Science Foundation discarded the ban on commercial activities on the internet in 1991 which gave rise to a major revolution in e-commerce As a result, the time period between 1995 - 1999 became a thriving time for the internet, many e-commerce companies entered the market and a number of e-commerce platforms made appearance. For example: Amazon, Yahoo, GeoCities and eBay.

In 1996, the United States alone had recorded a total revenue of 707 million dollars and a 2.6 billion dollar revenue in the following year. And, in 1998, 5.8 billion dollars. Correspondingly, Amazon had increased its turnover from 16 million in 1996 to 1.6 billion dollars in 1999.

Dot.com bubble
On the 10th of March 2000, the internet companies reached a peak with NASDAQ Composite Stock Market Index reaching 5133 before crashing on March 11, 2000. This historical event was known as the Dot.com crash, it lasted from 11th of March 2000 to 9th of October 2002. A year later, the NASDAQ Composite Index fell to below the 2000 points. Companies of all scale and size listed on these exchanges either had large losses of cost shares. Amazon’s stock prices fell by 29.9%, while eBay’s by 27.9%. Companies that survived the Dot.com bubble burst such as Amazon and eBay went on to dominate the E-Commerce market, which is now an oligopoly. A large proportion of e-commerce companies went bankrupt or was acquired by others during the Dot.com bubble.

Causing factors
At the end of the 20th century, the internet created an optimistic attitude towards the future of business and of e-commerce. Many internet companies were launched during these times, investors also overestimated the worth of these companies. Majority of them were unsuccessful, and the successful ones were highly overvalued. When the Dot.com bubble burst, many of these companies failed and investors suffered huge losses. The market crash cost investors a total of 5 trillion dollars.

Unrealistically high social expectation of the capabilities and the business opportunities the internet could offer at the time was the primary reason for the cause of the Dot.com bubble. Business owners and investors saw the internet as an opportunity to get-rich-fast.

The two main factors that led to the Dot.com bubble were:


 * Investors decisions were led by user metric rather than cash flow of the company
 * Stocks of the E-Commerce companies were overvalued

Uses of E-Commerce
See title "Directions for future development" in source [4], but use another source, actual see "4.2 Evaluating E – commerce platforms" under topic "IV. E – COMMERCE".

Existing platforms
Use this source, see title "Part III Consumers" on pg7, see detail (scroll down to relevant).

Markets
See title "Advantages and disadvantages of e commerce activities" in source [4], but use another source, mainly use this source in South-East Asia, see my assignment 1 (talking about how I'll use it).

Western
I'm going to add some text here about the western markets

South-East Asia
I'm going to add some text here about the South-East Asia markets

Category:Internet Category:Computer science