Eight Unique Features of E-commerce

Global reach

E-commerce technology permits commercial transactions to cross cultural, regional, and national boundaries far more conveniently and cost-effectively than is true in traditional commerce. As a result, the potential market size for e-commerce merchants is roughly equal to the size of the world's online population.

Social technology

Traditional mass media technologies were broadcasts-like, only allowing one-to-many communications. E-commerce technologies have the potential to invert this standard media model by giving users the power to create and distribute content on a large scale, and permit users to program their own content consumption. E-commerce technologies provide a unique, many-to-many model of mass communication.

Ubiquity

it is available just about everywhere, at all times. It liberates the market from being restricted to a physical space and makes it possible to shop from your desktop, at home, at work, or even from your car, using mobile e-commerce. The result is called a marketspace.

Information richness

refers to the complexity and content of a message. The richness enabled by e-commerce technologies allows retail and service merchants to market and sell "complex" goods and services that previously required a face-to-face presentation by a sales force to a much larger audience.

Interactivity

technology that allows for two-way communication between merchant and consumer. Interactivity allows an online merchant to engage a consumer in ways similar to a face-to-face experience.

Personalization/customization

the targeting of marketing messages to specific individuals by adjusting the message to a person's name, interests, and past purchases (personalization). The technology also permits customization—changing the delivered product or service based on a user's preferences or prior behaviour. Given the interactive nature of e-commerce technology, much information about the consumer can be gathered in the marketplace at the moment of purchase.

Universal standards:

the technical standards of the Internet, and therefore the technical standards for conducting e-commerce, are universal standards—they are shared by all nations around the world. In contrast, most traditional commerce technologies differ from one nation to the next. For instance, television and radio standards differ around the world, as does cell phone technology.

Information density

the total amount and quality of information available to all market participants, consumers and merchants alike. E-commerce technologies reduce information collection, storage, processing, and communication costs. At the same time, these technologies greatly increase the currency, accuracy, and timeliness of information—making information more useful and important than ever. As a result, information becomes more plentiful, less expensive, and of higher quality.