M.B.A. / There is much contemporary writing on electronic commerce, although the amount of academic literature is limited. Most of the survey data and literature available is conducted in the USA and Europe and information on electronic commerce in South Africa is severely limited (Benjamin, 1999:1). This would indicate that data specific to e-retailing would be difficult to source. Electronic commerce has experienced very fast development in recent years following a slow start with its inception in the 1960s, when the first attempts at integration between trading partners took place. The value of electronic commerce transactions internationally was expected to reach US$300 billion by the year 2000 (Bacchetta, Low, Mattoo, Schuknecht, Wager, and Wehrens, 1998). South Africa is expected to follow a similar development trend. As at early 1998, 80% to 89% ofthe revenue from electronic commerce came from business-to-business transactions, while the reaming 11% came from business-to-consumer (Benjamin, 1999:1). Technological change is one of the many strategic issues facing retailers and organisations alike. The high costs of the technology, the scale of implementation and commitment required affects the organisation and its interactions within the Industry (Kieser, 1999:4). The use of technology for data transfer is no longer simply a competitive advantage but is becoming standard practice (Benjamin, 1999:34) The choice to study e-retail (business to consumer) as opposed to business-tobusiness is based on the premise that although business to business is deemed to currently have a significantly larger impact on organisations, organisations are ultimately going to sell to customers via the internet, the end product of electronic...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:3636 |
| Date | 05 February 2014 |
| Creators | Diamond, Kevin Joel |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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