Over the last decade, from 1990 onwards, the massive growth and expansion of the information superhighway has opened new doors in the field of business and economics. A large part of this is what is known as e-commerce. E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce is basically the buying and selling of products and services by businesses and consumers over the Internet. Such a practice has exploded in the past year alone, as security measures have been greatly improved, and thousands of people are going "online" every week.

There are many reasons why e-commerce is likely to benefit consumers. Firstly, the massive range of products available on the Internet is almost unbelievable. Where else can you walk into a shop that sells cars, food, clothes and hi-fi equipment? Internet shopping is like walking into a huge store that sells everything. It is also very easy to find the product you want, as among the thousands of companies trading online, there is bound to be one which sells your 1957 Stratocaster guitar, or any other strange, rare product you are looking for. It is also feasible for a company to advertise ALL of its pro

In conclusion, we can see that e-commerce has massive benefits for consumers and a great deal of implications for suppliers. The main benefit for businesses is that the Internet provides a relatively low cost method to advertise and reach a large audience. There are so many reasons why e-commerce is good for consumers, the main one being because prices are so much lower than high street stores. But, despite the fact of the massive potential of e-commerce, it is bound to have some flaws; for example, it will put many people out of work. Also, the long-term effect that e-commerce has on the economy has not yet been determined.

The Internet also allows very cheap product promotion. Just looking at any web-site, you can see many banners advertising companies and products. These are very cheap and quick to establish, and if you place them on a popular web-site such as Yahoo, you will have millions of people seeing your product every single day, unlike large expensive billboards beside roads which do not see that amount of traffic.

A large part of trading in general these days is what is known as customer relations. This involves product support and help. In many companies, this is unsatisfactory and is not available 24 hours a day. But, using the principles of e-commerce, the Internet allows 24-hour product support, which can be accessed within minutes, therefore saving the cost of a long telephone call. Also, FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions) about the product can be posted on the web-site, thus cutting out the need for personal interaction between customers and employees which costs time and money.

Another benefit to consumers over the Internet is the ease of it all. A person can purchase something without leaving their house at all, and also products in other countries can be ordered with ease and no language barriers or long expensive phone-calls. Another advantage for consumers is that fact that they can compare prices between two different companies very easily within minutes or even seconds by simply going to the web-site. This would be much more difficult if a consumer had to actually visit the businesses to compare prices. Online shopping

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Approximate Word count = 1461
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)