Electric Commerce
Abstract
Electronic Commerce, or E-Commerce, is commercial transaction (e.g., buying and selling of goods and information) via computers. The term applies particularly when computers perform a significant role beyond the tracking of details in support of human decisions. Obviously, many tasks, essential to modern commercial life, should be re-assigned from people to computers. However, a chicken and egg dilemma retards change: Without supply there is no demand for such services, and without demand there is no supply. Once this dilemma is broken, the system should grow on a wave of positive feedback. This report describes many aspects of E-Commerce and its potential benefits: electronic gathering of needed pre-purchase information; E-CBD; methods for E-payments, including E-checks and E-stamps; distribution and delivery systems; E-advertisement; and Business Communication Protocols for computer/computer and for computer/man communication. Other topics include the potential problem of overselling, examples of E-Commerce start-up problems in the banking industry, and USC/ISI's Project FAST, an example of a project with the potential for breaking the dilemma, in a specific domain. We believe that integration of all computerized systems, both inter-and intra-organizational, is the key to the success of E-Commerce. Without a unified public E-marketplace encouraging large numbers of sellers and buyers, and without accepted business communication protocols, small systems may proliferate independently and separately.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA214261
Entities
People
- Danny. Cohen
Organizations
- University of Southern California