Unless youve been living under a rock for the last two years, you have heard about e-commerce, and I bet youve heard about it from several different angles. Im sure youve heard about all the companies that offer e-commerce because youve been bombarded by their TV and radio ads. Youve read all of the news stories about the shift to e-commerce and the hype that has developed around e-commerce companies. You may have even purchased something off the web, so you have direct personal experience with e-commerce. In 1996 while surfing the web, I stumbled on an online auction site. While I found it interesting and mysterious, I didnt have any light bulbs or bells go off in my head. I didnt experience any sudden or miraculous visions, I just thought it was kind of neat site, and in fact I told a few of my friends about what I had seen. One of my friends who was just getting his own Civil War artifacts business off the ground asked me if I had seen any Civil War period items up for auction on that site. I told him that I had and he inquired if I thought he might be able to auction off certain items that he had for sale. To make a long story short, we tried it and couldnt believe the results and the success. The site that I had stumbled onto was called Ebay and today along with a multitude of other online companies like Amazon.com its one of the most talked about, highly successful e-commerce success stories around. And little did I know that when I started buying and selling items online through this auction site, I was actually taking part of a new revolution in commerce, I was actively participating in what millions of internet users are doing everyday, I was participating in the now popular term; Electronic Commerce. Electronic commerce involves a wide range of activities. In its simplest form, the goal of electronic commerce is to improve the way in which business is conducted, through technology. This could be as ...
