E-commerce research and contemporary applications

E-Commerce Trends in the 21st Century

The rapid adoption of social media including the pervasive adoption of social networks on mobile devices is driving disruption into e-commerce globally. Today authenticity, transparency and trust dominate the concerns of global consumers, accentuated by the pervasive use of social networks and the continual integration of e-commerce into these very popular platforms (Morid, Shajari, 2012). The catalysts that are propelling e-commerce today are mobile platforms in conjunction with social networks and their many approaches to selling advertising, products and services. Clearly trust is the most critical catalyst there is holding all the disruptive forces of change together, with mobility and social networks driving greater levels of e-commerce adoption than had ever been the case in the past (Li, Xie, 2012).

Trust Is The New Currency

What emerges from the analysis of the three studies analyzed is that customers shop and use social networks that best align with how they choose to learn and interact with brands because it is a frame of reference they trust. The galvanizing aspect of e-commerce on social networks is the implicit trust that the friends, associates and extended social network acquaintances will also stay consistent with their approach to purchasing based on brand loyalty (Khorshidi, 2012). To the outside world, social networks appear chaotic and highly fragmented, even heterogeneous in structure and design. Yet to marketers using advanced analytics and tracking the relative level of trust across psychographic segments and throughout interactions based on common purchasing criterion, structural communities emerge. These communities are the structural components of communities are serve to mitigate purchase risk while increasing the propensity to try new products and services based on friends' recommendations (Morid, Shajari, 2012).

Based on these dynamics, e-commerce is becoming more contextual and more driven by relationships and the advice and influence of friends and associates in a community (and this includes social networks) (Morid, Shajari, 2012). Theorists have defined e-commerce not just as the relatively simple strategy or process workflow of selling products or service online; today it is more driven by the relational exchange of not only customer information but also recommendations and the overarching role of trust in relationships (Khorshidi, 2012). The very model of e-commerce has gone through disruptive change, away from the highly predictable and focused on just transactions, embracing trust and the contextual role of associates and recommendations of respected associates and friends (Morid, Shajari, 2012).

Conclusion