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 communications but also the society as a whole, as we move towards the increasing use of online tools to accomplish 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 maintaining 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 December 2011, which is the 32.7% of the World population (“World Internet Users and Population 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-commerce. 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 necessary 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 relationships 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).