2.1 INTERNET (ONLINE)
An internet is a network of computers, which
operates world wide using a set of protocols.
A
website is to the internet as a market shade is to the market. (Recall that a
market is where buying and selling can take place).
Burton
and minus (1960) states that “those wishing to sell market rent a shop or a
market store or shade, where they display their goods. Those who want to buy
from the market need not to acquire a shade”. The internet, which at the moment
have over790 million users (growing at the rate of 100 thousand new users per
day).
Similarly,
Lucy (1997) states that “The internet is a very big market, so if one
wants to sell on the internet, the person must acquire a website where
documentations can be exchanged. Online goods and services can stored much as a
trader stores his goods in a market shade”.
Those not wishing to sell but might buy or obtain free information on
the web need not to acquire a website.
2.2 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Electronic commerce or e-commerce is a term for any
type of business, or commercial transaction that involves the transfer of
information across the Internet. E-commerce allows consumers to electronically
exchange goods and services with no barriers of time or distance ( Ugah and
Ukpai, 2009) .To participate in electronic commerce, the following is
important.
·
Online business automation
·
Website
2.2.1 Auto responder
The use of auto responder for online supermarket
maximizes profit for online businessmen due to the promptness of its response
to queries or online forms submission.
There
are several automations, which promote online business but among all, auto
responder is of very much importance. As the internet user request for some
information or service in your online business, an auto responder (if
installed) sends an automatic reply to tell the visitor that he/she has been
received and he/she is receiving urgent attention and he will be communicated
in a due course. But because the visitor that makes the uniform resource
locator request might not be aware that it was a computer programmed that is
responding, he becomes impressed that he was able to retain a relevant
instantaneous respond from your website.
2.2.1.1 History of Auto-responder
An auto-responder is a computer program that
automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or
quite complex. The first auto-responders were created within mail
transfer agents (software that transfers electronic mail messages from one
computer to another using client–server application architecture) that
found they could not deliver an e-mail to a given address. They created bounce
messages such as "your e-mail could not be delivered because..."
type responses. Today's auto-responders need to be careful to not generate e-mail
backscatter, which can result in the auto-responses being
considered E-mail spam. Auto-responders are often used as e-mail marketing
tools, to immediately provide information to their prospective customers and
then follow-up with them at preset time intervals.
Such follow-up auto-responders can
be divided into two categories:
- Outsourced ASP (Active server page) model — these auto-responders operate on the provider's infrastructure and are usually configurable via a web-based control panel. The customer pays a monthly usage fee. This is easiest to implement for the end-user.
- Server-side — enables users to install the autoresponder system on their own server. This requires technical skills.
Auto-responders are also incorporated into electronic
mailing list software, to confirm subscriptions, unsubscriptions,
posts, and other list activities.
2.2.3 Website
The web and internet links provided in the website
is often called the World Wide Web (www) which is actually a distributed
multimedia hypertext system that is based on client/server architecture. An
internet website name normally starts with http://www. where http stands
for hypertext transfer protocols and www stands for World Wide Web. Http is set
of rules for communication between www clients and server.
A
website name (location), including its full part, is also known as uniform
resource locator (URL). Therefore, URL can be regarded as the address of object
in the World Wide Web. For example, the website of that organisation (online
supermarket) will be on the internet so that the customers will browse the net
and get the address of the organisation for purpose of buying and selling of
goods online or advertisement of commodities.
2.3 Nature of Electronic Commerce
E-commerce comprises business transaction conducted
using electronic communications processes and other facilities especially the
internet. Within that broad definition, there are two categories of interest.
Ø
Trade in
Physical Goods
This is a situation where goods are published on the
internet and buyers from all over the world can login and purchase goods and
pay over the internet and the goods will be delivered to them on a later time.
A good example is amazon.com. In theory, consumers in African countries can now
purchase goods from anywhere on the globe by placing orders and paying over the
internet. Perhaps more importantly, African entrepreneurs have the world ass
their oyster, being able to advertise their products, receive orders, ship,
ship and receive payment electronically, “leaving the playing field” and
enjoying vastly larger markets for their goods (Ugah and Ukpai, 2009).
Ø
Trade In
Offline Teleservices And Virtual Goods.
Many services such as
capturing medical records, digitalizing architectural drawing, translating
computer programs, etc. do not have to be done at a client’s physical premises,
and there are also some so-called virtual goods like downloadable music files and
digital images that can be created anywhere for electronic delivery to the
client. All that is necessary for this type of trade is effective electronic
communications.