MODULE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO E-COMMERCE 1

MODULE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO E-COMMERCE

INTRODUCTION

Today, we are in the middle of another transition. Social networks such as

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram, which enable users to
distribute their own content such as videos, music, photos, personal information,
commentary and blogs have rocketed to prominence. At the same time, mobile
devices and apps have replaced the traditional desktop platform and web
browser as the common method for consumers to access the Internet. The
mobile platform infrastructure has also given birth to another e-commerce
innovation.

In this module, we first define e-commerce and then discuss the difference
between e-commerce and e-business. Introduce the major technological building
blocks underlying e-commerce: the Internet, Web and mobile platform, unique
features of e-commerce technology and major types of e-commerce.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
After reading this module, the learner should be able to:
1. Discuss the basic concepts on e-business and e-commerce;
2. Trace the evolution of e-commerce;
3. Describe the unique features of e-commerce technology and their
business significance;
4. Give example of the major types of e-commerce.

TIME

The time allotted for this module is six (6) hours.

LEARNER DESCRIPTION

The participants in this module are BSBA third year students.

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 MODULE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO E-COMMERCE 2

MODULE CONTENTS

LESSON 1.1. E-business and E-commerce

The rapid growth and change that has occurred in the first two decades of e-
commerce represents just the beginning of e-commerce revolution. Technology
continues to evolve at exponential rates. This underlying give rise to presents
entrepreneurs with new opportunities to create new business models. Recent
statistics have estimated the internet population in the Philippines to be the
fastest growing in the world. It is determined to have enjoyed a growth rate of
530% over the last 5 years. The E-Commerce industry is also set to grow at an
annual growth rate of 101.4% between 2016 and 2020. The Philippines is home
to a sizeable youth population and is well placed to see continued online retail
activity in the coming years (“Philippines e-commerce to reach Php200bn by
2020”, 2019).

Source: wordpress.com

Definition of E-Business
Analytics
1. E-business refers to the digital enabling of transactions and processes
within a firm involving information systems under the control of the firm
(Laudon & Traver, 2018).

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2. E-business refers to a broader definition of e-commerce, not just the

buying and selling of goods and services, but conducting all kinds of
business online such as servicing customers, collaborating with
business partners, delivering e-learning, and conducting electronic
transactions within an organization (Turban, E., King, D. Lee, J.
K.,Liang, T.P. & Turban, D., 2015).

3. E-business refers to the use of the Web, Internet, intranets, extranets

or some combination thereof to conduct business. E-business is similar
to e-commerce, but it goes beyond the simple buying and selling of
products and services online. E-business includes a much wider range
of businesses processes, such as supply chain management,
electronic order processing and customer relationship management.
(techopedia.com)

Definition of E-commerce

1. E-commerce involves the use of Internet, the web and mobile apps
and browsers running on mobile devices to transact business (Laudon
& Traver, 2018).

2. E-commerce refers to using the Internet and intranets to purchase,

sell, transport, or trade data, goods, or services (Turban et al., 2015).

3. E-commerce is a business model that lets firms and individuals buy

and sell things over the internet (investopedia.com)

Activity 1.1.

 Watch the video lecture “Introduction to E-commerce”

 Watch the video “E-commerce vs. E-Business”. Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhpWKUWjOuc

Study Questions

After learning about the different definitions of E-business and E-

commerce, can you now differentiate E-business and E-commerce.

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LESSON 1.2. Evolution of E-commerce

It is difficult to pinpoint just when e-commerce began. There were several

precursors to e-commerce. However, none of these precursor systems had the
functionality of the Internet. When we think of e-commerce today, it is linked to
the Internet. Although e-commerce is not very old, it already has a history which
can be usefully divided into three periods: 1995-2000, the period of inventions;
2001-2006, the period of consolidation, and 2007-present, a period of reinvention
with social, mobile and local expansion.

Source: E-commerce 2017, Laudon & Traver

Activity 1.2.

 Read an article on “How E-commerce began: History and Evolution” by

Spiral click. Available from https://spiralclick.com/blog/history-and-
evolution-of-ecommerce

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Study Questions

Trace the evolution of e-commerce by writing the features (application or

tool used) in the e-commerce as employed in the following timeline:

1960 - 1990
1990 - 1994
1995 - 2000
2001 – 2010
2011 - present

LESSON 1.3. Features of E-commerce Technology

Figure 2 illustrates eight unique features of e-commerce technology that

both challenge traditional business thinking. These unique dimensions of e-
commerce technologies suggest many new possibilities for marketing and
selling. A powerful set of interactive,
personalized and rich messages are
available for delivery to target audiences.

Ubiquity. A physical place you visit in order

to transact. For example, television and radio
typically motivate the consumer to go
someplace to make a purchase. It is
available just about everywhere at all times.

Global Reach. E-commerce allows business

transactions on the cross cultural, regional
and national boundaries that can be more
convenient and more effective as compared Figure 2 Eight unique features of
E-commerce technology
with traditional commerce.

Universal Standards. One unusual feature of e-commerce technology is that the

technical standards of Internet, shared by all nations around the world. Standard
can greatly affect the market entry cost and considering the cost of the goods on
the market.

Information Richness. This refers to the complexity and content of message

(Laudon & Traver, 2018). The richness of traditional markets makes them a
powerful selling or commercial environment. Advertising and branding are
important part of e-commerce.

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Interactivity. E-commerce technologies allow for interactivity, meaning they

allow for two-way communication between merchant and consumer and among
consumers.

Information density. The density of information in the Internet has greatly

improved, as long as the total amount and quality of information to all market
participants, consumers, and merchants were available. The electronic
commerce technology reduces information collection, storage and
communication costs. At the same time, accuracy and timeliness of the
information technology greatly increase.

Personalization and Customization. E-commerce technology permit

personalization, merchants can target their marketing messages to specific
individuals. Technology also permits customization. Merchants can change the
delivered products or service based on user preferences or behavior.

Social Technology. E-commerce technologies have evolved to be much more

social by allowing users to create and share content with a worldwide community.
When you want to sell a product, you can put the information about your product
on a social media site.

Activity 1.3.

 Watch the video lecture “Introduction to E-commerce”

LESSON 1.4. Types of E-commerce

There are a number of different types of e-commerce and many different

ways to characterize them.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) E-commerce

The most commonly type of e-commerce in which online businesses attempt to
reach individual consumers. B2C e-commerce includes purchases of retail
goods, travel and other types of services and online content.

Business-to-Business (B2B) E-commerce

The largest form of e-commerce in which businesses focus on selling to other
businesses.

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) E-commerce

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) type e-commerce encompasses all electronic
transactions of goods or services conducted between consumers. These provide

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a way for consumers to sell to each other with the help of an online market maker
also called platform provider.

Mobile E-commerce (M-commerce)

Mobile e-commerce refers to the use of mobile devices to enable online
transactions. Mobile consumers can purchase products and services, make
travel reservations, use expanding variety of financial services and access online
content.

Social E-commerce
This type of e-commerce enable by social networks and online social
relationships.

Local E-commerce
A form of e-commerce that is focused on engaging the consumer based on his or
her current geographic location. Local merchants use a variety of online
marketing techniques to drive consumers to their stores.

Activity 1.4.

 Watch the video “Major types of E-commerce” Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWqSjlxw79Y

Study Questions

As an assignment, search the web for five (5) companies in the

Philippines. List them down. What types of e-commerce business model(s) do
they used? Create a presentation using Powtoon describing each company (take
a screenshot of each). Explain why it fits into categories of e-commerce to which
you have assigned.

Rubric for Grading

Requirements Points
Presentation was informative 10
Appropriate image were used to support text 5
Movie is between 45 minutes to 1:00 minutes long 5
Creativity and originality 15
Last slide is the Works Cited Page. All pictures are cited 15
properly. At least 5 pictures from the Internet must be
used. Music must be cited as well.
Total 50

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MODULE REFERENCES

Laudon, K. C & Traver, C. G. (2018), E-commerce 2017: Business, Technology

and Society

Turban, E., King, D. Lee, J. K.,Liang, T.P. & Turban, D. (2015). Electronic
commerce: A Managerial and Social Network Perspective

“E-commerce vs. E-Business”. Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhpWKUWjOuc

www.techopedia.com

www.investopedia.com

“How E-commerce began: History and Evolution” by Spiral click. Available from
https://spiralclick.com/blog/history-and-evolution-of-ecommerce

“Major types of E-commerce” Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWqSjlxw79Y

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MODULE 2 –E-COMMERCE- INFRASTRUCTURE

INTRODUCTION

The Internet continues to change over time. Computers have merged with
cell phone services, tablet and laptops are expanding rapidly, self-publishing via
social networks and blogging now engages millions of Internet users and
software technologies such as cloud computing and smartphone apps are
revolutionizing the way businesses are using the Internet. Looking forward a few
years, the business strategies of the future will require understanding of these
technologies and new ones such as different types of wearable technology, the
Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence to
deliver products and services to consumers.

This module examines the Internet, Web and mobile platform of today and
tomorrow, how they evolved, how they work, and how their present and future
infrastructure enable new business opportunities.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
After reading this module, the learner should be able to:
1. Define Internet and describe its limitations
2. Explain the benefits of Internet
3. Describe how Internet and web features and services support e-
commerce

TIME

The time allotted for this module is six (6) hours.

LEARNER DESCRIPTION

The participants in this module are BSBA third year students.

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MODULE CONTENTS

LESSON 2.1. The INTERNET – Technology Background

The Internet is increasingly playing a vital role in our lives. It is more

important to understand how it works and how you can get the best from it.

Definitions of Internet

1. The Internet is an interconnected

network of thousands of networks and
millions computers linking businesses,
educational institutions, government
agencies and individuals ((Laudon &
Traver, 2018).

2. Internet is an electronic
communications an electronic
communications network that
connects computer networks and
organizational computer facilities
around the world (Merriam Webster).
Figure 3 The INTERNET

3. The internet is a globally connected network system that uses TCP/IP to

transmit data via various types of media.

4. The internet is a network of global exchanges including private, public,

business, academic and government networks connected by guided,
wireless and fiber-optic technologies (Techopedia).

5. The Internet is the world’s largest computer network. It is also a collection

of interconnected networks all freely exchanging information.

Activity 2.1.

 Watch the video lecture “E-commerce Infrastructure”

 Watch the video “5 Key E-commerce Infrastructure Tips”. Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GGqygsutIE

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LESSON 2.2. The Future of Internet Infrastructure

The Internet is changing as new technologies appear and new

applications are developed. The next era of the Internet is being built today by
private corporations, universities and government agencies. To appreciate the
potential benefits of the Internet of the future, you must first understand the
limitations of the Internet’s current infrastructure.

Limitations of the Internet

Bandwidth. There is insufficient capacity throughout the backbone, the

metropolitan switching centers, and the last mile to the house and small
businesses. The result is slow peak-hour service (congestion) and a limited
ability to handle high volumes of video and voice traffic.

Quality of service. Today’s information packets take a circuitous route to get to

final destinations. This creates a phenomenon of latency. Latency is a delayed in
messages cause by the uneven flow of information packets through the network.
A higher level of service quality is required if the Internet is to keep expanding
into new services such as video on demand and telephony.

Network architecture. Today, a thousand requests for a single music track from
a central server will result in a thousand efforts by the server to download the
music to each requesting client. This slows down network performance, as the
same as music track is sent out a thousand times to clients that might be located
in the same metropolitan area.

Wired Internet. The Internet is largely based on cables such as fiber optic and
coaxial cables. Fiber optic cable is expensive to place underground. The wired
nature of the Internet restricts mobility of users although it is changing rapidly as
WI-FI hotspots proliferate and cellular phone technology advances.

The Future Internet

The increased bandwidth and expanded wireless network connectivity of

the Internet of the future will result in benefits beyond faster access and richer
communications. Some of the major benefits of these technological
advancements include latency solutions, guaranteed service levels, lower error
rates and declining costs.

Latency solutions. One of the challenges of packet switching when data is

divided into chunks and then sent separately to meet again at the destination is
that Internet does not differentiate between high-priority packets such as video
clips and those of lower priority such as self-contained e-mail messages.

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Because the packets cannot yet be simultaneously reassembled, the result can
be distorted audio and video streams.

Guaranteed Service levels and Lower Error rates. In today’s Internet, there is
no service-level guarantee and no way to purchase the right to move data
through the Internet at a fixed pace. Today’s Internet promises only best effort.
The Internet is democratic meaning it speeds or slow everyone’s traffic alike. In
the future, it might be possible to purchase the right to move data through the
network at a guaranteed speed in return for higher fees.

Declining costs. The availability of broadband service will expand beyond major
metropolitan areas significantly reducing the cost of access. More users mean
lower cost, as products and technology catch on in the mass market. Higher
volume usage enables providers to lower the cost of both access devices or
clients and the service required to use such products.

LESSON 2.3. The Internet and Web Features and Services

The Internet and the Web have spawned a number of powerful software
applications upon which the foundations of e-commerce are built.

Communication tools. The Internet and Web provides a number of

communication tools that enable people around the globe to communicate with
one another, both on a one-to-one basis as
well as one –to-many basis.
Communication tools include email,
messaging applications, online message
boards (forums), Internet Telephony
applications and video conferencing, video
chatting and telepresence.

E-mail. Electronic mail has been the

most used application of the Internet. Email
uses a series of protocols to enable
messages containing text, images, sound
and video clips to be transferred from one
Internet user to another. The files can be
documents, images, sound or video clips.
Figure 4 Internet Services

Messaging Applications. Instant messaging allows you to send

messages in real time. It displays text entered almost instantaneously. It provides
more advanced systems such as voice and video chat functionality. Mobile

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messaging app such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Viber and

others have also become popular.

Online Message boards. It is also referred to a forum, bulletin board or

discussion group. It is a web application that enables Internet users to
communicate with each other, although not in real time. An online message
board typically requires that the member visit the board to check for new posts.

Internet Telephony. It is a general term for the technologies that use

voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and the Interne packet-switched network to
transmit voice, fax, and other forms of audio communications over the Internet.
VoIP can be used over a traditional handset as well as mobile device. It avoids
the long distance charges imposed by traditional phone companies.

Video Conferencing and Video Chatting. This can be access with a

broadband Internet connection and a web camera. The most widely used web
conferencing suite of tools is WebEx, owned by Cisco. Video chatting provides
limited web conferencing capabilities. Apple’s Face Time is a video chatting
technology available for IOS mobile devices with forward-facing camera.

Telepresence. It creates environment in a room using multiple cameras

and screens which surround the users. Broadcast quality and higher screen
resolution help create the effect. Providers of telepresence software and
hardware include Cisco, BlueJean Network and Polycom ATX.

Activity 2.3.

 Watch the video “Internet of Things: How it works?” Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhmzVL5bm8

Study Questions

Select one example of Internet of Things (IoTs) and describe what it is and
how it works.

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MODULE REFERENCES

Laudon, K. C & Traver, C. G. (2018), E-commerce 2017: Business, Technology

and Society

Turban, E., King, D. Lee, J. K.,Liang, T.P. & Turban, D. (2015). Electronic
commerce: A Managerial and Social Network Perspective

“5 Key E-commerce Infrastructure Tips”.

Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GGqygsutIE

“Internet of Things: How it works?” Available from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhmzVL5bm8

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Online Quiz No. 1

True or False

____ (T/F) 1. E-commerce is also known as E-business.

____ (T/F) 2. Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba Company.

____(T/F) 3. E-commerce is the process of buying, selling and exchanging

products and services via computer networks.

____ (T/F) 4. Business to business is an e-commerce model in which all the

participants are business or other organizations.

____ (T/F) 5. The online delivery of information for purposes of training or

education is called distance learning.

____ (T/F) 6. M-commerce is a form of e-commerce that is focused on engaging

the consumer based on his or her current geographic location.

____ (T/F) 7. If a company purchase Godiva chocolates as gift for its employees
and has Godiva mail them directly to the recipient, the company engaged in
Business to business to consumer.

____ (T/F) 8. Selling and buying electronically can be either business to

consumer or business to business.

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____ (T/F) 9. Network infrastructure includes cell phones and other devices that
are located in various locations by telecommunication networks including
wireless ones.

____ (T/F) 10. Buying an e-book in Amazon is an example of partial e-

commerce.

Fill in blanks

_________ 11. Company XYZ sells products to individual. What EC model do

they fit?

_________ 12. A physical place you visit in order to transact.

_________ 13. This type of e-commerce enable by social networks and online
social relationships.

_________ 14. Purchasing a computer from Dell.com is an example of what

EC model?

_________ 15. The most used application of the Internet.

Short Answer

16 – 20 Describe the three (3) evolutions in E-commerce

ELECTIVE 1 – E-COMMERCE AND INTERNET MARKETING