Mitchell Levy of CEOnetworking has compiled a listing of top technology- related trends for 2004. Of the highest 10 trends on his list, two are related to e-commerce: the rise of spam and viruses and also the continued growth of e-commerce.
According to The Washington Post, spam or unsolicited commercial e-mail accounts for about 50 percent of all e-mails. With the assistance of special software, spammers can generate various combinations of letters and numbers and place the name of a standard Internet service provider (ISP) like AOL after each @ to make an inventory of immeasurable e-mail addresses, many of which are actual e-mail accounts. Although as of 2003, 26 states had antispam laws, many of us still send out spam since they’re unlikely to urge caught, and it’s a cheap way to reach customers. the actual fact remains that although only a handful of people out of m folks that receive a spam message open it and eventually make an acquisition, spammers find it worth their time to spam because the quantity of sales generated is higher than the value to distribute spam. This creates a controversy for legitimate companies that are sending out e-mails to current or past customers who may delete them thinking they’re spam. although many believe there should be a ban on spam kind of like the ban on unsolicited faxes that came into effect in 1991, others argue that banning spam violates spammers’ rights to free speech.
As more and more small businesses go surfing, e-commerce will still grow within the coming years. in step with e-Marketer, 80 percent of small business were online as of 2003.