Literature Review On E-Commerce

2 Literature Review

2.1 Definitions of Electronic commerce

Electronic commerce (E-commerce) has been a popular topic in the literature since the Internet began to be commonly used for commercial purposes in the 1990s. It could be regarded as the key achievement of applying information communication technology (ICT) in economy (Rosen, 2000). In 1998, Committee on Trade and Development of World Trade Organization (WTO) defines E-commerce as “the production, distribution, marketing and sale or delivery of goods and services by electronic means”. Similarly, in a survey conducted by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1999) on 200 companies of different sizes, most companies agree that E-commerce is about business activities, both communications and transactions, conducted electronically that including not only ordering, invoicing and payment but also marketing, advertising and communications. Therefore, the understanding of E-commerce is quite dynamic and manifold. It can be various due to different context and research aims (Grandon and Pearson, 2004). Though there is no consensus on the definition of E-commerce, the measuring elements can be summarized into business activities that occur by electronic means and technological means that enable these activities (Kendall et al., 2001). Some researches define E-commerce broadly by including all business activities done by any electronic means while others define narrowly by centering on certain parts.