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Business to Consumer (B2C) E-Commerce Decade Evolution

Article · October 2013

DOI: 10.4018/ijksr.2013100101

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 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013 1

Business to Consumer (B2C)

E-Commerce Decade Evolution
Athanasios Drigas, National Center for Scientific Research (NCSR) ‘Demokritos,’ Institute of
Informatics and Telecommunications, Telecoms Lab - Net Media Lab, Athens, Greece
Panagiotis Leliopoulos, National Center for Scientific Research (NCSR) ‘Demokritos,’
Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications, Telecoms Lab - Net Media Lab, Athens,
Greece

ABSTRACT
This paper is a review on Business to Consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (e-commerce) and it studies its
evolution over the last decade. The Internet characteristics that affect B2C are the Internet growth, which at
first includes the number of Internet users and secondly, the infrastructure, which is basically the quality and
speed of the lines. Moreover, the way the Internet growth has affected the B2C e-commerce growth over the
last ten years is studied in three major countries-areas. The USA because it is an Internet developed country
with vast e-commerce sales, China because it is a rapidly developing Internet country with a large number
of users and fast e-commerce activity growth in the last decade and finally, the European Union, because of
its diversity in Internet and e-commerce growth. This paper focuses on the aforementioned three geographic
areas and extracts its conclusions from the observations of B2C behavior growth in these areas.

Keywords: Business to Consumer (B2C), Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce), Evolution, Infrastructure,

Internet Growth

1. INTRODUCTION definition according to Atrostic et al. is; E-

As Tsur said “Electronic commerce in its dif-
ferent manifestations is spreading and rapidly
affecting all of us. We can say when individual
customers are able to purchase goods or service
over the web; this practice can be referred to
as “B2C” or business to consumer (Tsur et al.,
2001). Hence, a definition of e-commerce is not
completely clear and there are many different
definitions for it. For example, a definition
of e-commerce according to the U.S. Census
Bureau is; E-commerce is defined as the value
of goods and services sold online (US Census
Bureau Special Projects Staff, n.d.). Another
commerce is any transaction completed over
a computer-mediated network that transfers
ownership of, or rights to use, goods or services
(Atrostic, Gates, & Jarmin, 2000). Finally, ac-
cording to Deiss e-commerce is the trading of
goods and services over computer mediated
networks (such as the Internet) (Deiss, 2002).
E-Commerce activities are generally classi-
fied as business-to-business (B2B) or business-
to-consumer (B2C). Business-to-consumer
e-commerce uses the Internet as a retail market
channel and in the case of information, as a
product or service delivery channel. B2C e-
commerce is increasing rapidly and in 2005 it

DOI: 10.4018/ijksr.2013100101

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2 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013
totaled $189 billion or approximately 2.0% of
the total business-to-consumer sales (Barkley,
Markley, & Lamie, 2007). Hence, the high
profits and the high growth rate are reasons to
study e-commerce, especially in the last decade.
It must not be forgotten that e-commerce
is an Internet based service and hence, Internet
user growth and of course the quality and the
speed of the Internet are basic characteristics
for e-commerce growth as it is mentioned next.
On the other hand, the uneven growth of
e-commerce internationally is a problem that
could be overcome by bringing technology
and e-commerce to underserved as well as to
developing countries (Hoang, Phan, & Scott,
2002). For this reason B2C e-commerce is
studied in three different geographic areas such
as the USA, China and the European Union.
2. THE INTERNET GROWTH
AND THE EFFECTS OF
B2C E-COMMERCE
2.1. The Internet Global Growth
from 2000 to 2010 and the
Effects of B2C e-Commerce
The Internet has made distances shorter and the
world smaller, and its influence reaches not only
the technical fields of computer communica-
tions but also the society as a whole, as we move
towards the increasing use of online tools to ac-
complish electronic commerce (“Internet World
Stats” 2010; Leiner et al., 1997). Furthermore,
according to Blank and Strickling the Internet
is an extraordinary platform for innovation,
economic growth and social communication.
High-speed Internet services delivered over
broadband networks are critical to maintain-
ing the competitiveness in a global economy
(Blank & Strickling, 2011). In the next sections,
the parameters for Internet growth are studied.
A very important parameter for Internet
growth is the number of users. In March 2000
the number of Internet users was 304 million
worldwide, (which is the 5% of the World
population) to reach 2,267 million users in De-
cember 2011, which is the 32.7% of the World
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population (“World Internet Users and Popula-
tion Stats,” 2011). This means an increasing
rate of 1,963 million users and corresponds to
28.31% of today’s World population.
In addition, another parameter of Internet
growth is the speed and line quality which are
very important for e-services such as e-com-
merce. According to Weinberg, over $4 billion in
lost revenue is due to slow downloads over the
Internet (Weinberg, 2000). Moreover, according
to Zwass an appropriate infrastructure is neces-
sary for the development of e-commerce, which
means faster Internet connections, in order that
the growth of e-commerce is relative not only
to the number of Internet users but also to the
Internet speed quality (Zwass, 1996).
Finally, the Internet offers a new means for
buying, selling and providing customer services,
which in turn has an impact on traditional rela-
tionships between buyers and sellers and this
provides modern and rapidly evolving electronic
services such as e-commerce (“E-commerce and
the Internet in European businesses,” 2003).
According to Mahadevan the meteoric growth
of the Internet over the last decade and the B2C
e-commerce services are strictly united and the
results have developed in several services, such
as e-mail and search engines, which play a key
role towards the growth of B2C e-commerce
(Mahadevan, 2000).
2.2. The Internet Growth from
2000 to 2010 in the U.S.A and the
Effects of B2C e-Commerce
The Internet was first developed in the U.S.A. in
1968 as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency) and later Bolt, Beranek and
Newman developed the ARPAnet, which is
the grandfather of today’s Internet (Slater III,
2002). Hence, since the early 70’s the USA
possesses the necessary infrastructure for
Internet provision, which was firstly used for
military and government purposes and later for
common users.
As it can be seen in Figure 1, broadband
Internet growth starts at 4.4% in 2000 to reach
68.2% within a decade (Strickling et al., 2011).
 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013 3

Figure 1. Overview of household adoption rates by technology percent of U.S. households

(Strickling et al., 2011)

According to the U.S. Census, approximately
80% of households had at least one Internet
user. Cable modem connection (32%) and DSL
connection (23%) ranked as the most commonly
used broadband technologies. Other technolo-
gies, including mobile broadband, fiber optics,
and satellite services, accounted for a small, but
still a growing segment of households about
broadband Internet access service (Blank &
Strickling, 2011).
Until February 2011 the total Internet user
access was 80.23%, therefore as it can be seen
in Figure 2 this is a very satisfying rate for the
2000-2010 decade, which gives the opportunity
to users to access a wide range of e-services such
as e-commerce (“Digital Nation: Expanding
Internet Usage,” 2011). In addition, in Figure
3, an increase to e-commerce sales from 2002
to 2011 can be observed and this is a character-
istic example of how the increasing number of
Internet users can affect e-commerce (Winters,
Davie, & Weidenhamer, 2011).
Of course the big bet for the US is not only
the increase of Internet users but also the quality
and the speed of the Internet services. As it can
be seen in Table 1 (Internet usage in households
in the US for 2010), the broadband (fast) Internet
connections are only a mere 2.82% compared to
dial-up (slow) connections (68.24%), while no
Internet use, reaches 19.77%, which is a respect-
ful number of users. Moreover, an 88.01% of
home users cannot have access or have partial
access to e-commerce services. Additionally, a
hardware improvement from 56K modems to

Figure 2. Household internet usage in and outside of the home by state: 2010 (“Digital Nation:
Expanding Internet Usage,” 2011)

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4 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013

Figure 3. Estimated quarterly U.S. retail sales as a percent of total quarterly retail sales: 1st
quarter 2002 – 4th 2011 (Winters, Davie, & Weidenhamer, 2011)

broadband connections is necessary. According
to Weinberg, hardware improvements may be
falling behind and not keeping up with Web
user’s bandwidth appetites (Weinberg, 2000).
From 2000 till nowadays this is still the case and
it is a major problem for e-commerce growth.
2.3. The Internet Growth from
2000 to 2010 and the Effects of
B2C e-Commerce in China
According to Tan, The Internet in China began
with a few academic networks in the late 1980s,
with substantial growth occurring since 1994
(Zixiang, 1999). Nowadays the annual growth
rate is quite impressive. The truth is that China’s
Internet growth was extremely high in the last
decade, and this is presented analytically next.
In Figure 4, it can be seen that the number
of Internet Users in China increases yearly,
according to the statistical data taken from the
Statistical Report on Internet Development
in China. In the year 2000 the Internet users
were 22.5 million and reached a total of 137
million in the year 2006. Therefore, there was
an increase of 114.5 million Internet users in
six years, which was a good growth rate for the
population of Chinese Internet users (“The 26th

Table 1. Internet access and broadband internet connections in households (%), Source: Eurostat

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 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013 5

Figure 4. Numbers of internet users in previous surveys (“The 19th Statistical Report on Internet
Development in China,” 2007)

Statistical Report on Internet Development in network), the popularization of broadband has

China,” 2010).
In the first half of 2010, the number of
Internet users in China continued to increase
its growth rate. Up to June 2010, the number
of Internet users reached 420 million with an
increase of 283 million Internet users compared
to the end of 2006 (Figure 5).
According to CNNIC in the first half of
2010, the number of broadband Internet us-
ers continued to increase from 9.792 million
households to 113.017 million households.
On the other hand, Internet dial up users
were reduced by 1.688 million households.
The constant expansion of coverage for basic
broadband services has helped the growth of
broadband user scale. Until June 2010, among
groups using cable Internet access (permanent
reached 98.1% and the number of broadband
Internet users has reached 363.81 million. But
it must be mentioned that the average access
speed in China is only 857kbps, which is far
behind that of Internet developed countries
such as the USA, Japan and Korea (“The 26th
Statistical Report on Internet Development in
China,” 2010).
Of course the growing usage and speed of
the Internet truly boosts e-commerce. In Fig-
ure 6, a growth in the online retailing market
from 2008 to 2012 can be seen and due to the
growing number of Internet users the growth
of e-commerce is boosted (“China Distribution
& Trading,” 2011). A characteristic example is
the stock market trade via the Internet in China,
between investors and trading offices, which

Figure 5. Net citizen scale and popularization rate in china (“The 26th Statistical Report on
Internet Development in China,” 2010)

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6 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013
Figure 6. Transaction value of china’s online retailing market, 2008-2012 (“China Distribution
& Trading,” 2011)
are currently completed via the Internet. Hence
the stock trading via the Internet in two years
(from 2000 to 2002) reached about 5 billion
US dollars, which is about 11.08% of the total
trading value of two stock markets (Tan & Ouy-
ang, 2004). Moreover as mentioned by Trappey
and Trappey, Internet access and e-commerce,
depend on telecommunications and of course
on infrastructure (Trappey & Trappey, 2001).
2.4. The Internet Growth
from 2000 to 2010 and the
Effects of B2C e-Commerce
in the European Union
This paper refers to the European Union of 27
Countries (EU27) and takes into account the
average of EU27 for comparison reasons. For
these reasons the EU has an agenda about its
future activities and of course about Internet
growth and e-commerce.
According to Eurostat, by 2013, all
citizens within the EU should have access to
broadband Internet. In addition, by 2020 the
minimum bandwidth of the broadband Internet
connections should be 30 Mbps, with 50% of
the households having a speed of at least 100
Mbps (“Information society statistics at regional
level, most recent data,” 2011).
Moreover, according to Eurostat, in 2010,
seven out of ten households (70%) on average
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in Europe with members aged between 16 and
74 years had access to the Internet at home and
six out of ten (61% of households) accessed
the Internet via a broadband connection (Fig-
ure 7). These numbers have grown rapidly in
recent years, with an average annual growth of
5% for Internet access and 6% for broadband
access between 2008 and 2010 (“Information
society statistics at regional level, most recent
data,” 2011).
On the other hand, the big gap between
developed Internet EU Countries and non-devel-
oped Internet EU countries must be mentioned.
According to Eurostat (Figure 8), the countries
with the highest Internet penetration are the
Netherlands (94%), Luxemburg and Sweden
(91%) and Denmark (90%), while on the other
hand, countries with low Internet penetration
are countries such as Bulgaria (45%), Romania
(47%) and Greece (50%). As it can be under-
stood this gap is a problem for the low Internet
penetration countries which have limited access
to e-services, like e-commerce (“Internet access
and use in 2011,” 2011).
Fast broadband Internet connections en-
able users to fully exploit the potential of the
Internet. Many of the advanced Internet services,
such as social networking sites, uploading and
downloading of media content or the use of
online maps and even less advanced services
such as e-mail communication, search engines
 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013 7

Figure 7. Internet access and broadband internet connection in households, EU27 (%), Source:
Eurostat

and e-commerce all require a broadband con-
nection for high efficiency (“Information
society statistics at regional level, most recent
data,” 2011).
Of course, Internet access and Internet
speed quality affect B2C e-commerce dramati-
cally as it can be seen in the next Figure 9 from
Eurostat. In 2011 58% of EU Internet users
had ordered goods or services over the Internet
within the last 12 months. The highest percent-
ages of e-commerce usage were observed in the
United Kingdom (82%), Denmark and Germany
(77%) and Sweden (75%). On the other hand, the
lowest percentages were observed in Romania
and Bulgaria (13%), Lithuania (25%), Latvia
and Italy (27%) (“Internet access and use in
2011,” 2011). Hence, as it can be seen in Table
1, Internet access and broadband Internet are
relevant with the above and this can be deduced
from the EU average and also, the gap between
high share e-commerce countries and low share
e-commerce countries is quite significant.
It has already been mentioned that the B2C
e-commerce services directly depend on the
high Internet penetration in households, which
leads to the fast growth of B2C e-commerce
(Fornefeld, Delaunay, & Elixmann, 2008).
Furthermore, in Figure 10, a forecast about

Figure 8. Individuals who have never used the internet, 2011, Source: Eurostat

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8 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013

Figure 9. Internet users bought or ordered goods or services for private use over the internet in
the last 12 months, Source: Eurostat

e-commerce from 2007 to 2013 is depicted
where it can be observed that the growth of
e-commerce is very relevant to the number of
Internet users and the quality and speed of the
lines (“E-commerce across Europe, Progress
and prospects,” 2008).
Despite the fast growth of B2C e-commerce
over the years, it still represents only about 25%
of the overall e-commerce in Western Europe,
the remaining 75% being Business-to-Business
(B2B) e-commerce. For this reason, B2C e-
commerce tends to be considered less important
than B2B online transactions for the EU. But this
is not a given and the fact that many individu-
als use the Internet to search for information
before they actually buy an item or a service
in a normal shop, must be taken into account
(Fornefeld, Delaunay, & Elixmann, 2008).

Figure 10. e-Commerce forecast (“E-commerce across Europe, Progress and prospects,” 2008)

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 International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 4(4), 1-10, October-December 2013 9
The Internet is an important and useful tool
for purchases because the user can check and
compare prices and purchase goods easily. The
development of e-commerce for example in the
UK shows that as soon as the public trusts the
technology and the available online information,
then B2C e-commerce increases dramatically
(ex. it increased 24% between 2005 and 2006)
(Fornefeld, Delaunay, & Elixmann, 2008).
3. CONCLUSION
The Internet and its services are directly in-
fluenced by the number of their users as well
as the infrastructure. These two simple factors
have affected the development of e-commerce,
over the last decade in the three studied geo-
graphical areas namely the USA, China and the
European Union.
Nowadays, the USA has a large number
of Internet users. However, a large majority of
them do not possess a broadband connection
to the Internet and as a result they have a poor
or even no access to electronic services such
as e-commerce despite the fact that the USA
possesses a very respectable infrastructure
and bandwidth compared to other countries as
well as a vast e-commerce market. Hence, it is
absolutely essential that vast and decisive in-
vestments should be made for higher efficiency
and further e-commerce growth.
China has had an enormous and grow-
ing number of Internet users in the last ten
years, which has resulted in the development
of e-commerce, but still falls short in Internet
infrastructure, with relatively low speed lines.
Despite the fact that it has achieved to rapidly
grow the Internet usage in the last decade, it is
still behind in what concerns speed lines. The
good news is that nowadays, China remains
an evolving country and therefore it can easily
cover this gap and improve e-commerce further
with the use of a well-planned strategy.
Finally, the European Union, being a coun-
tries union has big differences in the number
of Internet users and the infrastructure in each
country, which means big differences and un-
balanced spread of different services such as
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e-commerce. If Europe wishes to evolve in what
concerns e-commerce during this decade, it must
surpass itself and start dynamic investments in
infrastructure (especially in countries with low
Internet usage and speed indices) in order to
bridge the gap and to develop its e-commerce
activities. These investments don’t constitute
an unnecessary expense since they will yield
a strong profit from the e-commerce activity.
Furthermore, the effect of broadband Inter-
net growth is more significant and stronger in
developing countries rather than in developed
countries. Investments in broadband networks
should therefore also be a key part of the overall
development strategies in developing countries.
However, uncertainty about the length of the
crisis and the difficulty in obtaining longer-term
financing commitments in current market con-
ditions shows that some countries may require
additional external support to finance increased
spending (Qiang, 2010).
Therefore, it is very important that this
decade should concentrate, not so much on the
Internet spreading in households (for the simple
user-consumer) but mainly on the infrastructure
and the Internet speed, in order to develop all
the necessary Internet services and of course,
on the further development and spread of B2C
e-commerce in the mind of ordinary simple
Internet users and consumers.
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