Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems
such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily since the spread of
the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer,
supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems,
and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's
lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.
A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content
on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes
known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.
Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as B2B or Business-to-business. B2B can be open to
all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market).
Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to
facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the
facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and
Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial
documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller
machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. From the 1990s onwards, electronic
commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
Perhaps it is introduced from the Telephone Exchange Office, or maybe not.The earliest example of many-to-many electronic
commerce in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The
first online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another
pre-Internet online system introduced in 1991.
Although the Internet became popular worldwide in 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols
and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet. And by the end of 2000, a lot of European and American business
companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "ecommerce"
with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.
Founded in January 2002, the Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) is a research and development center in the University of
Hong Kong committed to promoting e-commerce infrastructure development and standardization. A member of OASIS, W3C, RosettaNet, and the ebXML
Asia Committee, CECID actively takes part in the development and implementation of international standards, such as Universal Business Language,
Web Services, and RosettaNet. Through participation in these international and regional standards bodies, CECID follows closely the latest
developments in e-commerce technology standards and promotes Hong Kong's e-commerce technology to technical communities overseas.
CECID's operation is primarily financed by R&D grants from the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government for its two
flagship research projects, namely Project Phoenix and Project Pyxis. In its completed Project Phoenix, CECID has produced several
software packages that implement major ebXML specifications. These software packages include Hermes Message Service Handler, ebMail,
and ebXMLRR Registry/Repository and are currently released under open source licenses on the freebXML.org website that CECID
established in 2002. Commenced in 2004, Project Pyxis targets to develop enabling technology for e-business interoperability
between trading partners and within large enterprises using various complementary and competing Web Services standards. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
