Introduction
E-Bay refers to a method of online auction and shopping where businesses and individuals can sell and buy goods from a website. This idea was first discovered in America by French-born Iranians in the early nineties. In the modern world of technology, e bay has contributed to the largest online shopping where people from around the world have bought different types of goods including electrical appliances, kitchen wares, and clothing attires. The price of goods is mainly arrived at through bidding where the item would be sold to the highest bidder. (Spencer,2006).
The idea has received major attention with a solid client base all over the global village, Echo bay Com has established over 30 branches in different countries spread around the world and is still working on many proposals that will see it even spread further. Echo bay is viewed as a superb mechanism used in electronic commerce to achieve the objective of global villagization. In the UK 70% of the shopping is done through echo bay. (Walton,2006)
Echo bay is a new technology that the global world has witnessed in the recent past though the researchers have been reluctant to explore its intricate, much interest and time are now being devoted and exciting revelations of the study are becoming conspicuous. The reason behind our study is to determine the effect of echo bays on modern communication and mass media, the degree of its impact, its contribution, and how successful use of echo bay is likely to contribute to the development of communication and media in contemporary society. (Cohen,2002)
It should be understood that any successful use of technology in the business environment is associated with tremendous benefits. We should validate these assumptions and quantify the perceived contribution in a meaningful way likely to result in milestones in the communication and media industry. Studying echo bays Vis a Vis communication is imperatively more or less the same as the comparison between electronic commerce and communication. (Jackson,2004)
Electronic commerce is defined as the buying and selling of goods and services between people and organizations through the internet. Any contribution that may be attributable to the development of communication and media is synonymous with the use of echo bay in the business fraternity. We will therefore talk about the following points;
Enterprise resource planning: in echo bay clients need information in detail as well as organizations. Provision of information in large volumes in a database for other concerned parties to access and make appropriate decisions is what is called the enterprise resource. E-bay plays a very important role by ensuring that information is provided to customers through the already designed websites, they can make online orders, buy and make the payment for the goods and services bought through the same website. (Walton,2006)
This represents a big milestone in the communication industry; the system can avail the information to the people wherever they are without the need to incur any extra cost. This has ensured that businesses minimize operational costs and at the same time increase their margins through the elimination of unnecessary intermediaries. Greater communication is achieved through the use of these websites. (Cohen,2002)
Using Marshall Mc Luhan’s theory of tetrad of media effects which exponentially try to explain means of social processes underlying the adoption of technology in society. He uses the following principles, enhancement, obsolesces, retrieval, and reversal. The above-identified principles are instrumental at every step of communication development as well as media. (Spencer,2006).
Enhancement
Enhancement refers to the addition of value or any positive modification provided by a medium to a system, Marshall cites a radio as an example where he states that the work of a radio is to modify the sound and music of a system. From this example, we can therefore ask ourselves what value echo bay adds to the communication process, which are the necessary adjustment eminent in this system. Well, any careful thinking will reveal that the use of echo bay allows information to be shared by people from across the global divide. Just like a radio modifies the sound so that any body is able to hear the sound, we can therefore say that echo bay are used by people to get the information they want through the websites. In other words it dispatches the information to everyone.( Nissanoff, 2006).
The role of this technique therefore is widely viewed in the context of dissemination and coordination of critical information in the industry. In business there are factors that make information relevant at any given point including time. Imagine a case where a business entrepreneur is expected to make an agent decision concerning a specific area in the organization, if the information does not reach him at the correct time then that information will never be relevant. (Hillis & Ken,2006).
- Obsolescence: under this principle, he says that a radio eliminates the cost of print media. No, extra costs will be incurred for printing the electronic media. In comparison with the e-bay technique, we come to realize that the use of echo bays has eliminated the use of intermediaries in the chain of distribution of information. Clients rely on the system to access the information of any volume deemed relevant.
If we were to use intermediaries the operational cost and reliability of the information would be tampered with. In this sense, there is no reasonable doubt that the use of echo-bay as online shopping has played a crucial role in the communication industry.
- Retrieval: retrieval refers to the recovery of any crucial data or item that was once used in the past, just like television can retrieve the image or pictures of a previous event or function. E-Bay plays the role of information retrieval by allowing customers to bring back the used items to be re-sold in the web. (Jackson,2004).
Old items could have past information that can still be relied upon by people in making future decisions. Alternatively echo-bay provides a systematic data recovery procedure that can be used by clients to find past information. Through this echo-bay business assume the role of information retrieval in the communication industry.
- Reversal: in the echo-bay shopping an organization can avail all its product lines and services through its websites. When this is done there will be no difference between electronic commerce and echo-bays business. (Klink, 2005).
Conclusion
Echo bay business represents a big technological impact on our businesses. Continued inventions and innovations are increasingly placing the economic world in a new era, business entrepreneurs are devising cost-effective ways of doing business, increasing their competitive advantage, and taking the lead in the industry. Its believed that the electronic business is gradually shaping the future of communication and media.
References
Cohen A. (2002). The Perfect Store: Inside eBay. Little, Brown & Company.
Hillis K, Michael P, Nathan E (2006). Everyday eBay: Culture, Collecting and Desire. Routledge
Jackson & Eric M. (2004). The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay , the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth. World Ahead Publishing
Klink E & Klink S. (2005). Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats: True Tales of Treachery, Lies, and Fraud from the Dark Recesses of the World’s Largest Online Auction Marketplace. Mooncusser Media.
Nissanoff D. (2006). FutureShop: How the New Auction Culture Will Revolutionize the Way We Buy, Sell and Get the Things We Really Want. The Penguin Press.
Spencer C. M. (2006). The eBay Entrepreneur. Kaplan Publishing.
Walton & Kenneth (2006). FAKE: Forgery, Lies, & eBay . Simon Spotlight Entertainment.