Nothing could've prepared them for the online shopping spree that consumers took the following year, as President Clinton urged consumers to do most of their holiday shopping online. The study also revealed that 26 million people made an online purchase during the 1999 holiday season, breaking the record set the year before. Back to Top. The benefits that e-commerce has had for all businesses in the late 1990's are tremendous . By doing business online, companies have been able to reach customers all over the world, thereby enabling them to expand their business as well as increase profits.
Businesses can also collect information about their customers through the use of cookies.
Cookies are small files that are placed on to a users hard drive when that user logs on to a web site. The cookies help the operator of the web site to collect information about the buying habits of particular groups of people. This information is invaluable to businesses because it allows them to better target their advertising with better information about demographics. Another benefit that e-commerce offers to businesses is a reduced amount of overhead cost. A company that does business on the internet will have reduced overhead costs because it is not spending as much money on buildings and customer service as compared to a typical traditional business.