Chapter 1 What is e-commerce?

‘The television will bring the Internet to the mass market and digital television is the key. Services offered through the television have a greater potential for attracting the types of advertising revenues needed to make new Web-based services commercially viable.’
Iain Stevenson, Head of New Media, Ovum
Information & communications technology (ICT)
Developments and innovations in ICTs and consumers’ response to these will have the greatest impact on the growth of e-commerce in the UK. To date, transactions via the PC-based Internet dominate the e-commerce consumer market, but other technlogies are emerging that will provide mass access to the ‘wired’ world.

It is not yet clear which types of interfaces will be adopted by consumers. The PC-based approach has dominated to date but other strong candidates are emerging. While technologies like DTV and games consoles will bring a platform for e-commerce into the home, screen phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Wireless Appliances Protocol (WAP) mobile phones will extend consumers’ access further.

Platforms
Perhaps the strongest contender is iDTV, a major innovation which not only brings e-commerce into the home but is also likely to provide access to those groups of the population deterred from buying PCs.

By year 2005, it is predicted that approximately 10 million households will have access to the Internet through the rise in DTV subscriptions:

  • 4 million terrestrial;
  • 4 million satellite;
  • 1.5 million cable.

    The predicted end to analogue television (at some point between 2006 and 2010) might mean that there would be an even faster adoption of DTV and corresponding mass access to e-commerce and the Internet.

    Interfaces
    The Web page is likely to remain the basic framework for Internet presentation but redesigned for convenience and accessibility for DTV, PDAs and screen phones. Other types of ‘store fronts’ may support voice and text-based Personal Communication Networks (PCN). A new range of interfaces and intermediaries may include:

    • electronic malls or ‘virtual’ high streets in which a sequence of store fronts can be inspected;
    • portals combining the features of broadcast channels, advertising, news and search engines;
    • >‘intelligent agents’ which sift material to customise searches according to user requirements and provide an informed assessment of alternative offers;
    • brokerage services with ‘real-time’ input by human agents for high value transactions.
    Whichever interface or variety of interfaces finally predominates we can assume that:
    • mass markets will require simplicity and user-friendliness;
    • hobbyists and more highly educated groups will demand greater flexibility and versatility (intelligent search agents) enabling sophisticated input and output;
    • DTV will be more conducive for the ‘walled garden’ e-shopping environment and its equivalents for Web hyper-linking over accompanying conventional advertising, and will also lend itself to direct marketing;
    • e-mail-based e-commerce will, at least in the short term, be a viable route, accommodated in small portable displays.