The Internet

In recent years, Internet has becomes one of the best tools in the modern society covering a wide range of areas such as business, military, communication and information exchange. It is not only limited to web browsing or sending / receiving emails only. People could even purchase tickets of the movie or concert tickets, download any favourite songs or movies and to buy things in foreign countries via the Internet without leaving the house (Pakhare, 2010). Internet is a common term in the 21st century. It is now relatively easier and lower cost to develop an e-commerce business than it was 10 years ago, therefore more individuals have bloomed up to entering into the world of Internet business. At the same time, failure cases are still rising.

E-commerce has not been cooled down by the “Dot com bubble”, but it has caused e-commerce to become more flourished than before (Census and Statistics Department, 2010). It is due to the fact that Internet services are begin provided in 24 x 7 x 365 basis such as service is available all year round. Consumers could gain any marketing information and to gather other consumers’ experiences in a borderless fashion via the Internet (Backer, 2005). Thousands of forums, blogs, news-groups and social utilities are famous channels in distributing consumer to consumer (C2C) information and business to consumer (B2C) information, otherwise known as the “word of mouth”. Based on the Internet, both good and bad comments of the products could be obtained in a more effective and efficient.

Reports from the Hong Kong government were available which provided an overview on the usage of Internet by Hong Kong resident. On “Usage of personal computers and internet services by Hong Kong Residents, 2000 to 2009” report (Census and Statistics Department, 2010), it showed that there was an increase in the number of families with Personal Computer (PC) connected to the internet during the years 2000 to 2009. The numbers have increased from 770 thousands families (36.4%) in the year 2000 to 1.6 million families (73.3%) in the year 2009. In 2009, there were approximately 620 thousands families (26.7%) without Internet connection. The people among the top usage of the Internet were mainly from 10 to 34 years old with more than 95% of the people in this age group with Internet connection in 2009. The number of people above the age of 45 with internet usage have also increased by nearly 10 times, during the years from around 129 thousands (5.