Web and e-commerce

Working with the internet requires understanding how it works. This article brings concepts and information about the web and one of the most widespread models on the internet, e-commerce.

The internet is a conglomerate of computers connected in a worldwide network. The name Internet comes from Inter, which means international or worldwide, and net, which means network. Its main function is sharing information from anywhere in the world with access.

The internet was created in 1969 under the name ARPANET, and some years later the world wide web appeared. Also known as the web, it is a virtual environment, because it does not exist physically, and it holds digital content that is stored on hardware. The English word web, “mesh or network,” refers to an analogy in which many points are connected and interconnected. On the internet, however, it is possible to navigate between those points in a non-linear way (LAQUEY and RYER, 1994).

Geographic map of ARPANET from 1969 to 1982

Web

The web is a technology that has no owner, because it is built on the sharing of information. That information lives at addresses called sites, and these in turn are made up of “pages,” which is also an analogy to printed pages. The concept of pages on the web is not exactly the same as the printed one, though, because in the digital medium pages can change constantly in size, form and content (RADFAHRER, 2000).

Digital content can come in countless forms, such as text, images, sound and multimedia. This data is distributed through online servers, where it generates a huge amount of data that makes up the World Wide Web, created in 1989 by the English scientist Tim Berners-Lee (LAQUEY and RYER, 1994).

English scientist Tim Berners-Lee

The web uses the concept of “navigation,” because information in a virtual space can be accessed in a non-linear way through hypertexts. Hypertexts are large bodies of information that have “links,” which are connections to other content, related or not. To navigate the web you need a browser, in Portuguese “navegador,” which is a program that locates addresses on the web and interprets the languages contained at the address (RADFAHRER, 2000).

Documents connected by hypertexts

It is essential to understand what websites are. They are digital content stored on some computer in the world, and they make information available. “Sites”, or “sítio” in Portuguese, can be found through an electronic address.

For a site to be online, a technology ecosystem is needed. You need a computer loaded with the site’s data, and this hardware that makes the site available on the internet is called a server. Each server has an address so that it can be located on the web, which is the Unique Resource Locator (URL). The URL, however, is made of four numbers separated by dots, from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255, so to make addresses easier to find, the domain system was created, also called unique names, which are tied to the URL. The format of a domain can vary a lot, but a common pattern is address.com or www.address.com.br (RADFAHRER, 2000).

Still within this ecosystem, there are several particularities that are constantly changing because of technological evolution. One of them is Browsers, the most popular software needed to navigate domains on the web. The software works by looking for an address and transmitting the hypertexts. This shows up when you access an address, and you can see that before the domain appears the acronym http (hyper transfer protocol) (RADFAHRER, 2000).

Because there are many browsers, analyzing them is an important factor when planning websites, since they interpret online pages in different ways. Those pages are based on markup languages called html (hypertext mark-up language) and cascading style sheets, css (Cascading Style Sheet).

The markup language and the cascading style sheets define, for example, colors, shapes, fonts, the presentation of images, and the whole structure of the site. So it often takes countless tests of the site in several browsers for the pages to fit the browsers. Besides these particularities there are plug-ins, which are software that helps the browser. Care is needed when designing sites that require plug-ins, because if they are not installed or the hardware does not support them, the pages will not load satisfactorily and navigation will be compromised. The most common plug-ins are the ones that allow viewing videos and animations.

For Laquey and C. Ryer (1994, p. 21), “the Internet gives you access to more people and a greater volume of information, faster than you can imagine.” Yet to access sites on the internet you need working hardware, such as a computer or a cell phone, a browser, and internet access. That access may work well or not, because the hardware has to communicate with data that is not local. In other words, if the connection is not good, navigation will be compromised. From this angle, whoever is designing a site has to understand for whom they are designing, and how and where people will access the content, because if the data at the address is not compatible with the software, the hardware or the quality of internet access, navigation at that address will be compromised.

E-commerce

Technological evolution made possible faster computers, mobile devices connected to the internet, and access to these technologies for thousands of people. The arrival of the web brought significant changes to online services, and more and more users became familiar with commerce on the internet, e-commerce (electronic commerce). In this context it became a profitable business and produced billionaire entrepreneurs. Still, online commerce has distinct particularities that are essential to understand for anyone who is going to work in this field.

For Smith, Speaker and Thompson (2000, p. 73), “e-commerce is derived from the term electronic commerce; i-commerce is derived from the term internet commerce.” This difference exists because electronic commerce covers not only the internet but every commercial operation carried out through electronic devices, such as bank devices generating statements and invoices. I-commerce, in turn, is a part of e-commerce, since it falls within the set of electronic applications.

E-commerce allows a company to be built at lower cost and with some advantages, such as the possibility of reaching a market of millions of people around the world, restructuring the company more quickly, and reaching markets that are still little explored. Despite the many advantages of electronic commerce, many companies disappeared quickly and went bankrupt. That happens because a company needs to keep a constant cycle of evaluation and updating, given how fast transformations in the digital world are.

E-bay, one of the biggest e-commerce sites in the world

According to Smith, Speaker and Thompson (2000), something fundamental in e-commerce is traffic, because the number of visits to the site generates income regardless of selling products or services. That is, people need to be interested in continuously visiting, so that revenue is generated through ads. This is one way of keeping the business sustainable, because this profit will cover losses and keep the business competitive and its stock up.

Keeping an e-commerce running requires multidisciplinary teams that can follow technological changes and the market. One example is understanding where to invest capital. If the market of smartphone users grows to the point that they start buying directly from the mobile device, for instance, is it strategic to invest in that niche or not? These questions must be under constant evaluation, just like web navigation patterns, browsers, markup and programming languages, security, economics, etc.

Success cases in e-commerce

Amazon, an American company founded by Jeff Bezos, began operating in 1995 with the goal of selling books online. At the time many investors believed it was an unviable, dreamy business, because there were no mass buyers on the internet, and people were believed unwilling to buy from a store they could not visit physically, so it would be very hard to win consumers’ trust in a virtual shop.

Early days of the company amazon.com

Bezos knew how to take advantage of the well-known strengths of off-line commerce and multiplied his forces with online resources, such as the possibility of offering a vast variety without taking up physical space, saving resources, and updating systems quickly. That way the company built a vast line of products that are sold in a complex “ecosystem.”

Amazon has partnerships with suppliers and publishers, for example, and so it can obtain millions of titles and deliver them to consumers quickly and at affordable prices. Among other strategies, Amazon provides many details about each of its products and displays people’s comments about what is sold.

Consumer reviews are fundamental, because in many cases people trust other users’ opinions more, and they start using the e-commerce site to look up opinions, and based on those opinions many end up buying straight from Amazon.

With this strategy the virtual address became the biggest online retailer and also a source for recommendations. In 2019 Amazon became the most valuable brand in the world, overtaking giants such as Apple and Google. According to the BrandZ ranking, developed by the marketing research agency Kantar, the company is worth US$315.5 billion, the equivalent of more than R$1.2 trillion (TechTudo 2019).

Another success case in a niche market is the Brazilian company Jovem Nerd, whose seed was launched in 2002 by Alexandre Ottoni (known as Alotonni), with a blog that would later become the Jovem Nerd portal.

Jovem Nerd page

According to Sabatini (2011), Ottoni realized that through a blog with content that nerds liked, he could monetize the service, and later he teamed up with Deive Pazos (known as Azaghâl) to turn the creation into a business. Jovem Nerd became a success case by giving users niche content such as podcasts on geek themes, comedy material, and products such as mugs, t-shirts and even books from its own publisher, Nerdstore. Focusing on this niche, Jovem Nerd seeks to know its customers’ culture in order to provide products and services that win them over.

In 2021, the giant of Brazilian e-commerce, Magalu, bought Jovem Nerd, which has 5.5 million subscribers across its YouTube channels and shows that have passed the mark of 1 billion views (Exame, 2021).

References

Exame, 2021: https://exame.com/negocios/por-que-o-magalu-comprou-o-jovem-nerd-e-para-onde-vai-a-varejista/

LAQUEY, Tracy and C. RYER, Jeanne. O manual da internet: Um guia introdutório para acesso às redes globais. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1994.

RADFAHRER, Luli. Design/ Web/ Design 2. Rio de Janeiro: MarketPress, 2001.

SMITH, Rob; SPEAKER , Mark; THOMPSON, Mark. O mais completo guia sobre e-commerce. São Paulo: Futura, 2000.

TechTudo 2019: https://www.techtudo.com.br/listas/2019/06/amazon-e-a-marca-mais-valiosa-do-mundo-veja-oito-curiosidades-sobre-a-empresa.ghtml