Summary

Internet commerce is the processes business-related connections and sales through the Internet. Like traditional commerce, internet commerce can be business to business, business to consumer and consumer to consumer. The difference we have highlighted in this presentation is what Rifkin (2001) calls a shift from traditional commerce or what he describes as from, “industrial production to cultural production” (p.7). This fast-moving, consumer-lead landscape has left traditional commerce behind as a population of consumers buck trends and develop sharing and networked communities and services such as ridesharing app, Uber.

Ride sharing is very new to Australia and its business model is at odds with traditional models and economic practises. They industry has struggled to keep up with the sharing economy where the transactions occur on a horizontal than hierarchial model.

In our report, we have reported on Uber and how this organisation stepped away from the traditional model of commerce and transport through smart phone technology. The Uber app has given users greater flexibility and choice. They are connected with drivers through an application that offers a low cost, easy to book and cashless transaction that many find preferable to cash or card transactions at their destination.

Since Uber’s entry into the market in 2014, the ride sharing application has gathered many fans, as well as critics who would prefer to see it drivers off the road. Uber has worked around sometimes draconian laws and regulation while governments and competitors fish for answers to the sharing economy. Laws that govern economics stay the same, however their application  to the sharing economy is only now beginning to catch up.

We have examined the business model of Uber and how it exhibits similar behaviours to its users.  Uber has connected with business in order to get where it wants to go. Partnerships with Internet giant, Google for instance has afforded the company the capital it needs to expand into international markets, working with local regulatory bodies to further its reach.

With expansion inevitabley comes conflict and working in international markets brings with it considerable barriers in penetrating a market and working in harmony with its users and drivers, especially in terms of cultural shifts such as the servant/master relationship in some countries. Added to this, competition in world markets is not homogenous, and competitors strategies different in different markets. Governmental regulation too creates concern for the company as transparency and ethics differ from country to country. Uber too, has been taken to task for the treatment of its drivers and how its review systems work for those drivers it deems to have fallen foul of its own regulations.

The implication for Uber is how it manages Internet commerce within the regulations of so many different markets all the while managing to continue to grow and expand. Test.