costs" such as time spent in seeking the right product would be eliminated. Most traditional markets never achieve such perfection, and therefore never achieve full economic efficiency. The Internet, however, is being investigated as a potentially efficient market in that if fosters aggregation, or bringing together a substantial number of buyers and sellers with a fixed menu of prices, and cutting transaction costs through one-stop shopping (The Economist, 2000). It is this Internet attribute that will be explored in the present report, which will identify the current thinking among industry analysts and economists as to the efficiency produced by e-commerce underpinned and made possible by information technologies (ITs).
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) accounts for about $1.5 billion per year following the phenomenal growth of the Internet (European Business Review, 1999). What the Internet offers is a unique opportunity for buyers (consumers and businesses alike) and sellers to
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