Global E-Commerce: Australia - Early History Of Internet Usage, Growing E-commerce Efforts

The development of e-commerce throughout the world ranges from the widely adopted use of the Internet as a medium for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) commerce transactions in North America, to the relatively embryonic stages of basic telecommunications service in many Third World countries. E-commerce development in most other areas, including Australia, tends to fall somewhere in between these two extremes, depending on factors such as existing technological infrastructure; the technological expertise of residents; the available of qualified employees; funding available for e-commerce ventures from governmental, commercial, and individual sources; and national, regional and local commerce regulations. Fueling the North American e-commerce boom was an unprecedented level of venture capital available from a variety of sources, as well as access to the world's largest base of technical experts, many of whom had obtained the skills to not only work for other e-commerce businesses, but also to establish their own ventures. Although both funding and technical expertise were available in Australia, they existed on a much smaller scale. Australians also tended to be skeptical about the potential of e-commerce ventures, which meant that many existing businesses were in no rush to build Web sites. In addition, Australia's technological infrastructure had developed more slowly than that in North America. As a result e-commerce there grew at a slower pace. However, the growing number of Australians with Internet access—an estimated 7.4 million, or 55 percent of residents, in early 2001—does position Australia as a potential e-commerce leader in the Asia/Pacific region.