E-Commerce in France compared to other developed countries

Résumé du document

Today the Internet might be viewed as having a huge market potential capable of covering the population of the whole world. This is why electronic commerce or E-Commerce is so attractive for many traditional businesses. E-Commerce consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown dramatically since the large introduction of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, including things such as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange, automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web in at least some point in the transaction's lifecycle.

Extraits

[...] The E-commerce market is totally democratic. This is perfect capitalism: if you sell you win, if you don't sell you loose. It's all about marketing and economic rules of demand and supply. Certain products or services appear more suitable for online sales; others remain more suitable for traditional sales. Many successful purely virtual companies deal with digital products, music, movies, education, communication, software, photography, and financial transactions. Examples of this type of company include Amazon.com, Google, E-Bay and Paypal. Products less suitable for Commerce include products that have a low value-to-weight ratio, products that have a smell, taste, or touch component, products that need trial fittings most notably clothing and products where color integrity appears important. [...]

[...] The critical factors for B2B commerce success--including technological infrastructure, culture, and financing--are currently more conducive in the U.S. than in Western Europe or Japan. Major factors for the latter two regions to overcome include the culture and the regulatory environment, particularly in Japan. However, continued growth and success of the B2B market will no doubt prompt Japan and Western Europe to make the necessary adjustments and investments to become major players. E-commerce has grown significantly during the pass 5 years. [...]

[...] From Figure 7 it can be seen that the gap between the UK and Germany is decreasing. Figure 7 also shows that these countries are experiencing a growth in secure servers in excess of the EU average. A number of crossovers can be seen in Figure where the extent of e-commerce in some countries has overtaken others (locating the countries is left as an exercise for the non-colour-blind reader). The EU is a relatively well-developed global hub for e-commerce. This is illustrated by its high ranking (second place after the US) for raw server counts and dropping down to third place (after Australia and New Zealand) for the per-capita measurement. [...]

[...] From this definition, e-commerce emerged in the 1960s, with automated payment systems and telephone services. Since then, e-business such as telephone banking, credit card services, fax orders and EDI have been developed, culminating recently with the use of the Web and the Internet. The kind of e-commerce supported by the Web is often called e-tailing and embodies the sales media, such as virtual storefronts, virtual malls and browseable product catalogues, as well as the mechanisms for placing orders. There are several categories of commercial activity on the Internet. [...]

[...] On the basis of the charts, it appears the the top three growth rates have been experienced by the US, Australia and New Zealand, and the EU. A look at EU countries Figure 5 shows a breakdown of number of secure servers per EU member country. Figure 6 is the per capita counterpart. A glance at Figure 5 may lead us to believe that the UK is the US commerce equivalent of the UK. However, it does not remain in position in the per-capita measurement shown in Figure 6 (which the US does above). [...]