Module Goals
After completing this module, students will be able to do the following:
⦁ Define e-commerce, and how it differs e-commerce differs from e-business, identify the primary technological building blocks underlying e-commerce, and recognize major current themes in e-commerce.
⦁ Identify the primary technological building blocks underlying e-commerce.
⦁ Outline major current themes in ecommerce.
⦁ Describe the unique features of e-commerce technology and their business significance.
⦁ Describe the evolution of e-commerce from its early years to today.
⦁ Compare and contrast B2C and B2B eBusiness models.
⦁ Discuss key business concepts and strategies applicable to e-commerce.
Overview
Every course you take should provide the knowledge and skills useful in the real world. Not every course will directly link to every task that you perform in your life or current employment, but learning how to review data, develop data analysis, critical thinking, and writing skills are all needed to convince someone that you can think critically and solve problems.
Your ability to pull together and leverage information, insights, and lessons from a number of disparate disciplines in novel ways could be precisely what is needed to stay ahead of your competition and give you a competitive edge.
Use of online systems is changing the way many businesses operate: everything from how they produce their products to how they provide their services and interact with their customers. Business fundamentals still rule, but the nature of the game is changing.
Capital investments in land, building, equipment, and sources of supply of raw materials characterized the winners in the 1800s and 1900s. While those things are still important, information is typically more valued.
During the run up to the “Dot com meltdown,” many were so enthusiastic about the potential for eBusiness that they completely ignored business fundamentals. They paid a heavy price for their enthusiasm.
We now are seeing serious changes in business models and attitudes, and this time it is not blind enthusiasm. There are many different eBusinesses with differing business models and now the growth is supported by real financial fundamentals.
(At least for many of the firms.) To be in business today means that one must do more than just be able to identify and understand aspects of eBusiness. Successful business persons need to be able to tease out the factors that are driving trends, explain how these factors operate, and then back up all of this with real data.
Goals Alignment
⦁ University Mission Based Outcomes – 4, 5
⦁ Program Learning Goals – 1, 3
⦁ Course Learning Objectives – 1, 2, 3, 7
Learning Materials
⦁ Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2021). E-commerce: Business, technology and society (16th ed.). Pearson. ISBN 9780136931720. Read Chapters 1 & 2.
Assignment
Discussion Question:
Select an e-commerce company. After visiting its website or mobile app:
⦁ Describe its business model based on the information you find there.
⦁ Identify its customer value proposition, its revenue model, the marketspace it operates in, and who its main competitors are.
⦁ Discuss any comparative advantages you believe the company possesses, and what its market strategy appears to be.
⦁ Discuss what you do or do not find appealing about this company.