Understanding the meaning of E-commerce and some popular E-commerce Website
E-commerce, as the name entails, is a kind of online Business model that involves buying and selling of goods and services which also involve the transmitting of funds or data, over the internet. We see e-commerce as a type of business setup on the internet for online shopping. The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used interchangeably.
Brief History of e-commerce
This started as from 1960 when the business started making use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to share the business document among themselves.
In 1979, the American National Standards Institute developed ASC X 12 as a Universal standard for businesses around the world to share documents through electronic networks.
Then as years go by, the number of users sharing electronic documents continue to increase modularity till the 1980s. the rise of e-commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay revolutionized the e-commerce industry, making it easy for consumers to purchase or order for products and services online.
In the United States, the federal trade commission (FTC) and the payment card industry Security Standards Council are among the primary Agencies that regulate e-commerce activities.
Advantages of e-commerce
Fast to access
Making it easy for international reach
Wide availability of goods and services for consumers
Disadvantages of E-commerce
The consumer cannot be able to touch or feel the product they want to buy.
Shipping of product taking a lot of time
List of some popular e-commerce sites
1. Amazon
Alexa traffic rank: 8
Amazon was started in 1995 as an online store for books. But very sooner, they expanded to all other trendy products like DVD, electronics, and other ones. Amazon now does have nearly 1 lakh employees.It is said that Amazon does have more 250 M unique visits per month. The growth of Amazon was really fast and have acquired a lot of companies.
2. Taobao
Alexa Traffic rank: 13
Taobao is the biggest market place in China. I do have more than 800 million products listed and 500 million users. It is the worlds largest e-commerce website next to Amazon.
4. TSmall
Alexa Traffic Rank: 23
Tmall is the most popular online retail store in China. It was started in 2008 by the same Taobao group, now operated by the Alibaba Group. It does have nearly 181 million registered buyers. According to Alexa, its the 8th most popular website in China.
3. eBay
Alexa Traffic rank: 32
eBay is an American e-commerce company founded in late 1995. eBay is one of the oldest e-commerce websites and does have operations all over the world. eBay was the first one to introduce the marketplace concept to e-commerce shopping cart websites.
Whether you are buying new or used, plain or luxurious, commonplace or rare, trendy or one-of-a-kind – if it exists in the world, it probably is for sale on eBay. one of the world’s favorite destination for discovering great value and unique selection.
They give sellers the platform, solutions, and support they need to grow their businesses and thrive. We measure our success by our customers' success.
5. Alibaba
Alexa traffic rank: 92
Alibaba is the global version of a Chinese company and it is world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses. This same Alibaba group owns Tmall and Taobao. I do have nearly 80 million registered users.
6. Flipkart
Alexa traffic rank: 115
Flipkart is the leading e-commerce company in India found in 2007. Very much like Amazon, Flipkart also started with books and expanded to other products later. In fact, Flipkart taught e Indian people to shop online. Flipkart stands inside the 10 most popular websites in India (in terms of traffic). They did implement the Cash On a delivery system which really worked out for the Indians.
7. Walmart
Alexa traffic rank: 184
Walmart is an American owned company and the biggest retailer in the world. It does have different outlets all over the world. People can buy these products online from walmart.com
8. SnapDeal
Alexa traffic rank: 229
Snapdeal is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in India which ships more than 25k products per day. It was founded in 2010. Initially, snap deal was mainly for deals (that you will get products for special offers). Later on, it switched into a complete e-commerce portal. It was big news that eBay did invest in Snapdeal that they got access to snap deal's 20 million registered user accounts. Snapdeal was on 6th position some months before in this list, but now it has been dropped down to position 8. Snapdeal had to go through some negative issues, this might have been the reason for traffic drop.
9. BestBuy
Alexa traffic rank:284
BestBuy is an American multinational consumer electronics corporation. It does have a vast collection of electronic goods at a cheap price. The global brand name of best buy(very much like Walmart) attracts visitors to the website and makes this a grand success in America.
10. Jabong
Alexa traffic rank:647
Jabong is another Indian e-commerce website mainly in the fashion and lifestyle niche. It was launched in 2012 and had rapid growth all over India. Jabong does have the inventory model as well market place model. Jabong has now taken over eBay in India in terms of traffic.
