Holmes Institute T1 2021 HI6008 Business Research: Topic Development

This project delves into the topic development process within the e-commerce industry, providing a comprehensive overview of its evolution, current state, and future prospects. The main body explores the e-commerce landscape, highlighting the impact of technological advancements and increasing competition. It examines key aspects such as outsourcing strategies, including the supply of materials and the collaboration between businesses like Amazon and E-Bay. The project further analyzes the benefits of business collaborations and the impact of e-commerce on traditional markets. The report concludes with a discussion on the future of the e-commerce industry, including predictions for market growth, the rise of mobile shopping, and the influence of emerging technologies and payment options. The project also includes a team charter, outlining team roles and responsibilities.

Topic
development

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
E-Commerce industry...............................................................................................................3
Outsourcing and supply of materials.......................................................................................3
Business collaboration...............................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Topic development is an important part of research process, in which a person engages into
various practices of research. The main purpose of development is topic development is to
gain all the crucial information related to a particular topic. In topic development, essential
information related to a particular topic is collected by researcher for a specific purpose. In
this project research is conducted on E- Commerce industry in order to derive crucial
information which will be essential for the research result.
MAIN BODY
E-Commerce industry
In the business world, the competition is increasing day by day as there is a wide scope of
operations. The enhancement of information and technology is also supporting E-commerce
industry in a major sense. The evolution of E- commerce came into existence when Amazon
sold its first book in the year 1995 (Evolution of E-Commerce industry, 2021). As per the views
of (Febransyah, 2020) the introduction of worldwide web played a major role in development of
e-commerce industry as the world was easily having access of different online platforms. In the
year 1996, according to a data report over 40 million people were having access of internet and
online sales were over 1 Billion US dollars. The major revolution in the e-commerce industry
was created by introduction of Pay-pal which provided effective solutions related to the online
payment solutions. In the online shopping market, E-Bay entered the market with sale of major
products at the online marketplace. By the starting of year 2001, around 70% of the worldwide
users were able to purchase goods from online shopping during the holiday season. In the online
shopping, a major revolution is created by introduction of Smartphone; the first shopping which
was made by Smartphone was performed in year 2008. If consideration of Business to customers
is calculated, B2C sales surpassed $ 1 Trillion in the year 2010. Also the famous social media
networking website; Face book started selling online advertisements on its social media
platform. The main revolution bought by E-commerce industry was with the introduction of
cyber Monday that became one of the major shopping day in the history of online shopping.
Outsourcing and supply of materials
In the E-commerce industry, outsourcing of various operations as well as well as supply
of materials related to sales play a crucial role. The Famous E-Commerce websites like Amazon

and E-Bay have tie up various sellers in the market that provides genuine products to them at
affordable cost. These companies make a deal with sellers to increase their sales and as a result
the companies provide genuine products and services to the customers. The E-Commerce
companies are actively engaged in providing good level of support to the customers with
effective after sales support. According to the views of (Gao, 2021) the E-Commerce companies
also tie up various companies in order to gain outsourcing services from the different countries.
These companies choose various countries where manpower is available at a cheap cost in order
to gain competitive advantage at the marketplace. The Amazon and E-Bay mainly prefer
countries like India, Thailand, Brazil and South Africa where the outsourcing services involve
fewer charges. To monitor all the activities related to supply of material these E-Commerce
companies deploy professional techniques related to information and technology. The supply of
materials to the E-Commerce companies involves huge financial cost as well as requires
effective and efficient management. This technique by the E-Commerce companies has given a
tough competition to the traditional market. If views of (George, 2020) are considered, the
techniques and faster operations which are performed by the e-commerce industries are adopted
by many new companies. As a result many traditional businesses have decided to go online and
perform sales related operations to gain effective advantage at the marketplace.
Business collaboration
According to views of (Hall, 2018), business collaboration is referred to the practice of increase
the operations of a business at the marketplace. In the business collaboration two or more
companies merge with each other to expand their operations at the marketplace. In the E-
Commerce industry, business collaboration has provided major advantage to most of the famous
companies. If example of Amazon is taken into consideration, in 2009 Amazon purchased
famous footwear Retailer Company Zappos which expanded the company’s footwear related
operations (Amazon major business collaborations, 2021). The company Amazon in the year
2012 also purchased Kiva systems which dealt in Robotics related solutions. In year 2014,
Amazon collaborated with Twitch Interactive service which is an online live streaming company.
These above mentioned collaborations benefitted the E-Commerce company Amazon in many
different ways and also increased its revenue generation capacity. The other online shopping
company E-Bay also gained the attraction of various customers by purchasing giant companies

like Half.com and MicroPlace.com which provided E-Bay major competitive advantage at the
marketplace. The benefits of business collaboration are mentioned below:
 Business collaboration develops the customer handling capacity of a business and
provides a company, edge over its competitors.
 The technique of business collaboration also facilitates marketing practices of a
company by facilitating promotion and publicity of several products.
 In business collaboration, there is enhancement in the financial position of a
company as well as there is a tremendous increase in revenue generation of the
company.
Future of E-commerce industry
As per the views of (Lian, 2017) the success of E-Commerce industry since its
introduction in the global market is immense and incredible. The recently performed new studies
predict that. Global E-Commerce retail sales can hit a whooping amount of $4.9 Trillion by the
year 2021. Recent studies also show that E-Commerce industry will account for 17.5% of total
global retail sales. The advertisements which are displayed on the social media websites like
Instagram and Facebook will play an effective role in attracting several numbers of customers
from the marketplace. The famous companies like Amazon and E-Bay are genuinely planning to
expand their operations in different countries which will require huge efforts. According to
recent studies the Business to consumer market will be surpassed by business to business market
by the year 2021. The future of E-Commerce industry is bright as it will soon face Mobile
shopping revolution as around 56% of Smartphone user purchase units from online shopping
portals (Future of E-commerce industry, 2021). Also with the introduction of interesting voice
command related products like Amazon Alexa and Google Voice Assistant enabled devices,
internet of things will be facilitated the most. The payment options which are available to the
customers are also changing day by day to provide more security to the customers. As stated by
(Reddipalli, 2020) with the introduction of Unified Payment Interface the sales of E-Commerce
is likely to increase with 14% in the global market. If views of (Yu, and et. al., 2017) are
considered, the different companies are effectively trying and working day and night to expand
their global operations at the marketplace in order to gain competitive advantage. The future is
also beneficial for companies like Amazon and E-Bay as they will attract a large base of
customers by providing effective discounts on their products and services. According to recent

studies, the owner of Amazon Company Jeff Bezos will become first man to have net worth of 1
Trillion.
CONCLUSION
From the above stated report it can be concluded that topic development provides detailed
information to a researcher. The topic development facilitates collection of data as well as it
synchronises the necessary data into precise information. The above stated report concludes that
E-commerce industry is the new market for customers all across the globe. The above stated
report also concludes that there is a stiff competition between various E-commerce industry
players. The above stated report also concludes that the future of online shopping is bright as it
uses mainly information and technology in its operations.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Febransyah, A. and Goni, J.I.C., 2020. Measuring the supply chain competitiveness of e-
commerce industry in Indonesia. Competitiveness Review: An International Business
Journal.
Gao, X. and Xu, J., 2021. E-Commerce in Industry 4.0. In E-Business in the 21st
Century: Essential Topics and Studies (pp. 235-267).
George, J.P., Prasad, M.H. and Philip, S., 2020. Accelerating growth of e-commerce in
India-evolving strategies and affective factors. Indian Journal of
Ecology, 47(spl).pp.126-131.
Hall, J., 2018. Top tips to improve e-commerce employees’ satisfaction. Strategic HR
Review.
Lian, L., 2017. Research on Starting Business of E-commerce Students. Computer &
Telecommunication, 1(12).pp.23-26.
Reddipalli, R., 2020. Online Customer Experience in E-Commerce Industry. Available at
SSRN 3624060.
Yu.Y. and et. al., 2017. E-commerce logistics in supply chain management. Industrial
Management & Data Systems.
Online
Evolution of E-Commerce industry.2021[Online]Available through:<
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-evolution-of-ecommerce/>
Future of E-commerce industry.2021[Online]Available through:<
https://www.bigcommerce.com/articles/ecommerce/future-of-ecommerce/>
Amazon major business collaborations.2021.[Online]Available through:<
https://www.geekwire.com/2019/amazon-partners-rite-aid-new-store-package-pickup-option-
expanding-logistics-network/>