E-commerce in the life of Qatari Women Research Paper

E-commerce in the life of Qatari Women - Research Paper Example From the perspective of a business, IT allowed companies to operate online and reach global customers at the most cost efficient way. One of the dimensions of IT is e-commerce and it acts as a tool that facilitates online business. In addition, it has also helped customers to carry out online purchases irrespective of the time and geographic location. The negative factors on the other hand appeared in the form of security threats. Before getting further deeper into the study, a brief overview of e-commerce is presented below. The notion of e-commerce can be traced back during the epoch when the concept of the internet just came into light. During the earlier days, e-commerce was deemed as the process through which companies used to carry out their transaction over the electronic platforms (Majumdar, Cave, and Vogelsang, 2005). During this period, the concept of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) has also emerged and companies used these tools to tra nsact in an efficient manner. These technologies have allowed companies to complete transactions electronically and companies were hugely benefitted by it. However, the commercialization of e-commerce only became possible during the early 1990s and as soon as it became commercialized a number of business houses such as eBay and amazon.com have taken their business online (Reynolds, 2004). In the early stages, companies had shown more interest in using the internet as a tool for promoting the business, but for the last decade it companies became more active in selling their products and services over the online platforms (eCommerce-Lund, 2004). From the point of view of customers, e-commerce eased several kinds of activities. For example, it allowed customers to shop during their convenient time and also allowed them to carry out shopping sitting inside the home (Bhasker, 2006). The sales figures also experienced huge growth. According to reports, the growth was around 32% in 2012, i n comparison to 2011 (Provost, 2012). Apart from e-shopping, e-commerce also allowed customers to carry out banking transactions. Hence, it is evident that e-commerce now acts as part and parcel of the life of human beings. Executive Summary This study seeks to shed light on the impact of e-commerce in the life of Qatari Women. The primary objective was to identify the problems faced by Qatari women in using e-commerce in their daily life. In order to address the objectives, the study will carry out a survey of 10 people so as to know their perception about e-commerce. In order to analyze the findings, the study used qualitative approach. Both primary and secondary research was undertaken to identify the problems associated with e-commerce in the life of Qatari women. The key findings of the study were that Qatari women face problems related to the payment gateway, security issues, delivery issues and issues pertaining to terms and condition. In order to triumph over these issues, t he Qatari women should make themselves more familiar with such platforms and should only use authentic platforms. Similarly, the government must ensure that the websites are transparent enough and is offering secure payment gateways. The Problem The women of Qatar exercise full right so as to take a proactive role in the society and simultaneously act as a vital element in the development process of the country. With the modernization of the society, the Qatari women have also adopted themselves with the shifting market dynamics (qatarembassy,