Finally, a possible disadvantage to e-commerce is not having a strong organizational commitment. A functional web site that is going to be successful will soon need additional resources in technology and skills. E-commerce is evolving at a very rapid rate and the business owner must be willing to evolve with it. Newer and more advanced technology will cost more, but should be supplemented by additional revenues. Also, the company must be willing to change the entire business or start a new one when they can see the need for change. "Yahoo started as a commercial operation in 1995, with a simple, if enormous, list of Web sites to help people navigate the Web. But like the Web itself, Yahoo is changing fast. The once amazing ability to search the entire World Wide Web became outdated in a Net instant, so Yahoo, at the tender age of two years, began reinventing itself as a place to trade stocks, make travel reservations, and conduct commerce.¡¨ (Hof, 1998)
The Future of E-commerce
Rest assured the future of e-commerce is intact and ever changing. "Like electricity, antibiotics, or the car, the Internet is a revolutionary technology."(France, 1999) It is quite evident that e-commerce is only gaining speed. As one article stated, ¡§The growth of e-commerce won¡¦t diminish, it will become such a pervasive influence on how a company works that all functions within an organization will have a stake in their e-commerce strategy.¡¨ (Wareham, 2000) With Internet traffic doubling every 100 days the digital economy is alive and growing. The huge growth of virtual communities are causing shifts in economic power from large corporations to smaller businesses. "Virtual communities erode the marketing and sales advantages of large companies. A small company with a better product and better customer service can use these communities to challenge larger competitors--something it probably could not do in the real world." (CommerceNet, 1999).…
