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United States and Europe are always considering leading and dominating the development of electronic commerce. However companies such as eBay and Amazon have shown the slow down growth of the U.S. market. It is predicted that the biggest potential still lies in Asia. According to researchers at IDC, it is forecast the annual Asian sales outside Japan , including Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korean and India, charging ahead at 38% a year through 2007 eBay sales (Miller, 2004)
Demographic features The population of internet users has increased dramatically six times from 200,0000 to 1220,0000 with recent five years (the Executive Yuan of Republic of China). According to the survey done by Yahoo in 1999, there are 46% female users; and the average age of internet users is 25.8; with mostly collage students (Wie, 1999)
There are 23.7% of Internet users ever purchase online with average 3.47 times. The growth of average annual spend is seven times higher than the pervious year. The main items purchased online is still books and magazines (36.8), following with other 3C products (information service 23.5%; telecommunication devices 22.6) (Wie, 1999).
There are several fashion and popular internet implication been used amongst young users such as MSN Messengers, MP3, online newspaper, virtual communities, blogs etc.. Overall, the growth of Internet and other implications is ongoing in Taiwan.
There are a lot of traditional industries takes the new electronic commerce mode to operate. The fastest growing business is security firms, stock exchange companies such as Polaris, and independent companies Jihsun. Travel business is also considering as one of the industries suitable applying electronic commerce mode. Service as routines planing, ticket and accomodation booking, car rents. It is a common trend nowadays of combinations of hotels, air lines, travel agencies and related business.
Other industries includes information technology companies IBM and Compaq, publishing EsliteBooks, and Kingstone; Employment database 101, 104 .
Taiwan's economy is heavily depends on information technology, and business to business electronic commerce (B2BEC) which is good for small and medium enterprise (SME) is took for the nationwide policy. B2BEC is a method with Internet-based or Internet-supported commercial activities between two or more different companies or parts of companies (Tsao and Lin, 2004).
There are several main points of electronic commerce according to Taiwan law. Firstly Taiwan laws ultimately look at the written document as evidence. electronic data codes does not qualify as document, however some printed data, codes, serial numbers and other authentication has started to be take into account recently. There are protections according to Consumer Protection Laws for online consumers. The Fair Trade Law prohibit merchants from offering false information that result in misleading consumers, for example certain advertising requires approval before releasing on the Internet. Third, electronic payment includes electronic funds transfer, credit card-based system, and data protection is another important legal issue. Other issues such as copyright and personal data protection are in the legal framework as to ensure a save and fair online environment (Chen, 1997) (http://www.jcil.org/journal/articles/234.html).
Chen, G. (1997)"Electronic commerce on the Internet: Legal developments in Taiwan," The John Marshall Journal of Computer and Informationa Law vol.15. no.1.
Miller, K. L. (2004) "Asia Bound ; E-commerce: As growth slows at home, firms like eBay, Yahoo and Amazon head east," Newsweek pg.41.
The Executive Yuan of Republic of China (Taiwan)(2005) Retrieved October 24, 2005, from http://www.ey.gov.tw/web92/news/Wc413f62e3c042.htm.
Tsao, H., Lin, K., and Lin, C. (2004) "An Investigation of Critical Success Factors in the Adoption of B2BEC by Taiwanese Companies," Journal of American Academy of Business vol.5, iss.1/2.
Wie, T. (1999) "Internet and the develpoment of E-commerce," from http://www.ec.org.tw/knowledge/.
Yun Tze Pien 16:23, 22 Oct 2005 (EST)
