THE IMPACT OF E-COMMERCE ON RETAILERS IN THE UK

1.1 Introduction and Background E-commerce, called electronic commerce, also known as e-business is found when there is an operation of goods and services through the use of the internet or electronic communications. Electronic commerce has generally been known by the public in the last decade or less but in fact, E-commerce has existed for about thirty years now (Stewart, 2008). Stewart (2008) mentioned in (Sawanibi, 2001) that e-commerce was created through the development of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the exchange of business information from one computer to another. EDI was created in the 1960s when transport companies and retail businesses were trying to initiate "paperless" offices. In the 1970s, EDI was officially used by the Accredited Standards Committee of industry deputies, since then, many companies started to use EDI throughout the 1970s and 1980s (Lucking-Reiley, 2000). An example of e-commerce today is, that companies use EDI to transfer funds, place orders and exchange financial information through computers. E-commerce is one of the major drivers of growth of retail business in several economies in both developed and developing countries. In accordance with the study conducted in 2014, by the United Kingdom Centre of Retail Research, it is estimated that the retail business generated ₤38.8 billion from e-commerce in 2013, taking into account that the forecast was assumed to be ₤45 billion by the end of 2014 (Lucking-Reile