The Growthof E-Commerceinthe U Sand Its Impactonthe Economy

... Virtual Vineyards Finance - Barclays Bank. Electronic Share Information Distribution -DIPA GmbH. Oracle Prepost sales support -Hewlett Packard. GE Plastics Engineering design -Ford. The Global Engineering network. Business support -CitiusNet. Publishing -The Times. The Irish Independant Shared business processes - Tesco. As the above examples help to illustrate, there are various levels at which electronic commerce can be conducted, ranging from a simple network presence to electronic support for processes that are jointly owned and enacted by two or more companies.Various levels of electronic commerce are listed above. Electronic commerce is more complex at the international level than the intranational level because of such factors as taxation, contract law, customs payments, and differences in banking practices. This highlights the distinction between national transactions and international transactions. The sources of this distinction are not technical - as already emphasised electronic commerce is essentially global in concept, but rather legislative. The lower levels of electronic commerce are concerned with a basic network presence, company promotion, and pre- and post-sales support. By using available "off the shelf" technologies, these levels can be both cheap and straightforward to implement, as thousands of small companies can already testify. By contrast, the more advanced forms of electronic commerce pose complex problems that are as much legal and cultural as technological. At these levels there are no "off the shelf" solutions, so companies are forced to develop their own custom systems. Thus at present it tends to be only the larger and richer companies that are pioneering these levels. However, over time the boundary of what is commonplace will gradually move up to encompass the more complex levels of electronic commerce, and further "off the shelf" technologies will be established to support these higher levels, just as they have been for the lower levels.Bibliographynone