Online Commerce As A Multi Billion Dollar Industry

At CanGo it is obvious that the Internet has changed how society shares information, communicate, educate, shop and entertain them selves. Cushman & Wakefield conducted an extensive research during 2013 on the “online retail/ecommerce market”. The information published by Cushman & Wakefield is important to CanGo because CanGo’s business is part of the “online retail/ecommerce market”. The report has indicated that the growth has been an average of 18% during the course of three years (2009-2012) as opposed to the growth of the normal or traditional retail sales, which only grew 1.3% for the same period of time.

The definition of E-Commerce or E-Tailing is replacing the traditional relationship of buying and selling in person or the phone with the use of the Internet, Smart Phones and networking. The more people that use the Internet regularly, the more Internet commerce increases. This causes a continual loop of improvements and innovations of which businesses must be aware. Most economists see e-commerce as a market segment that leads to intensive price competition and consumers armed with greater knowledge. E-commerce has changed business models globally, and allows customers to engage in the process of shopping either online or to a destination. Brick and mortar stores do have a conundrum do you want traffic into the store, or do you want the sale based on ease of shopping and/or convenience? (Eisingerich).

A steady increase in the popularity of online sales has caused a major push towards e-commerce in the retail industry.

Over the past decade, Shopping on the internet has skyrocketed with internet sales reaching almost £30 billion in 2012, which accounts to almost 10% of total sales in the UK. This is due to the increased possession of Internet devices such as: smartphones, laptops and computers. It has become much easier and simpler for

Since 2000, there has been a double-digit growth in the e-commerce sector; statistics have shown that more than 80% of regular online shoppers have used Internet to purchase products or services, while 50% of the online population recorded to have shopped online more than once.

The Internet has changed the way we do virtually everything, including the way we shop. However, shopping is not the only thing that has changed. In the last decade we have changed the way, we apply for loans, study, and even plan a vacation. Doing any of these things would have been impossible a few decades ago. At present, online banking, paying bills, ordering new services, and shopping online have become part of our daily lives. Traditional brick-and-mortar stores have been around much longer than online stores, but we cannot deny that online shopping is giving the traditional stores competition. Many consumers still choose to shop at regular brick-and-mortar stores because they like to see and

There are many different business trends shaping e-commerce today. For one, ecommerce remains the fastest growing form of commerce when compared to physical retain store, services, and entertainment. Another trend is that the online demographics of shoppers broaden to match those of ordinary shoppers. Also, small businesses and entrepreneurs continue to flood through the e-commerce marketplace, often riding on the infrastructures created by industry giants and increasingly taking advantage of cloud-based computing resources. Lastly, pure e-commerce business models are refined further to achieve higher levels of profitability,

Online shopping or online retailing is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser. Alternative names are: e-shop, e-store, Internet shop, web-shop, web-store, online store, and virtual store. An online shop evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or shopping center. The process is called business-to-consumer (B2C) online shopping. In the case where a business buys from another business, the process is called business-to-business (B2B) online shopping. The largest of these online retailing corporations are eBay and Amazon.com, both based in the United States.

Online shopping has been a growing phenomenon all over the world especially among countries with well-developed infrastructure with marketing activities over the Internet (Kau, Tang & Ghose, 2003 ). Hawkins, Best & Coney (2001:592) are of the opinion that Internet sales will increase rapidly in years to come.

The time of elaborate, multi-story shopping centers is rapidly coming to a close with the rise of Ecommerce. Over the last decade, technology has inspired an online retail boom that has benefitted some retailers, while leaving others helpless. With the younger generations embracing smart phones and tablets, Ecommerce’s role has shifted from an untested frontier to a vital pillar for the retail industry. In fact, total global business to customer (B2C) Ecommerce sales was expected to top $1.5 trillion in 2014, and it is anticipated to grow 88.4% to $2.3 trillion by 2017.

While the reputation of e-commerce has been increasing through the years, its popularity varies within the different generations. Millennials, in particular, with their willingness to embrace new technology are having a keen impact on e-commerce. Compared to previous generations, Millennials have grown up with technology and tend to use it as their default option. This makes much more susceptible to e-commerce. Millennials, classified as people from ages 18-34, make 54% of online purchases. (United Parcel Service, 2016). As Millennials (and the generation younger than them) become the dominant generation, e-commerce can be expected to grow and may even overtake in-store shopping.

Today, people are engaging in e-commerce more than ever. Traditionally American consumers shopped exclusively in local businesses and specialty mom and pop stores. These stores are essentially smaller, independently owned and operated businesses that have little influence on the market. Small businesses occupy several areas of business including retail, services, wholesaling and manufacturing. The growing acceptance of the Internet and e-commerce in the early 1990’s changed the way people shopped, shifting consumer preference from traditional to online shopping. With the introduction of personal electronic devices and more readily available wireless internet, Amazon’s customer membership continues to grow. As online retailers

Online buying is the process of selling and buying goods or services by using computer via internet. Since the development of www (World Wide Web), vendors have looked for a way to sell their goods and products to people who like to spend time on the internet. Shoppers can visit web stores from their houses and shop while they are sitting in front of their computer or laptop. Internet and online shopping has the ability to provide a lot of types of businesses with the ability to rise up

Many studies have attempted to study the characteristics of online users and shoppers around the globe. As per studies done by Technowledge Asia in 1999 and 2000, cybershoppers in some Asian regions were observed to be primarily males, in the age range of 26 to 35 years and better educated. This is not altogether different from that found by Donthu and Garcia (1999) who concluded that online shoppers in USA were “mainly males with above-average education, income, and occupation”.

E-Commerce has been a popular activity on the Internet, for it facilitates commercial acts between online service providers and individuals. The popularity of E-commerce could be reflected by the turnover of the industry. The turnover of e-commerce in Europe grew by 14.3% to reach 423.8 billion euros (about GBP 360.5 billion) in 2014, and that of the United Kingdom (UK) increased by 14.7% and reached 127.1 billion euros (about GBP 108.1 billion) in the same year (Ham, 2015). Important private information (e.g., bank information, gift card numbers) would be recorded while consumers doing online shopping and doing other E-Commerce activities. This recorded information would be stored on the servers of online dealers or be saved in consumers’