Since January, I have been given the weekly assignment of writing my educated thoughts on a particular e-commerce subject that sparked my interest. What seemed like a task at first, was in fact a pleasure and something I very much looked forward to every Thursday evening. I have turned from relaxer to reader, from inattentive to in-the-know, and from bored to blogger. I have even garnered a small fan-base! There has certainly been no shortage of topics to write about this semester. While my classmates may have chosen telecommunications or online shopping, it is quite obvious that I have chosen technology and social media as the underlying theme for my weekly posts.
E-commerce is all around us. Many of us are involved, using, or simply coming across it on a daily basis. Sure eBay and Amazon are the obvious examples, but it really does go deeper than that. When you think of the removal of the penny, what first comes to your mind? The rising price of copper, having to round prices to the nearest nickel, or even just a lighter pocket? Being an e-commerce student, I have been trained to think beyond those lines and ask questions such as: will retailers now adjust their prices so that (with tax) they will always be rounded up? And if so, how will retailers adapt their ERP systems to do this and how much will it cost? For the online shopper who purchases off of U.S based websites, have you thought about how your bank account will be charged for something that may be $19.98USD? We don’t live in a bubble here people, it is only Canada that has taken these measures.
It is inevitable that certain aspects of the course are going to be technical, especially for someone who has never even heard about ARPANET, TCP/IP, or DRP before. The beauty about this is that once I understood how it works, I was then able to question technology and how it impacts me as the consumer, as well as the retailer. The significance of data recovery and disaster mitigation, the intricacy of cloud computing, and the importance of information security are all topics that have become so relevant with the emergence of the iWorld, the Google Wallet, and of course, social media. I truly believe there is nothing better than to be able to gain a considerable amount of relevant knowledge from a course, and this is what e-commerce has given me. Well, not to mention a full blown and unmanageable addiction to Pinterest as well.
Make fun of me all you want for being a tech-geek, but the next time you post, pin, poke, or purchase, you will realize just how much e-commerce is integrated into your daily lives.
