E-Commerce and E-Business

E-Commerce and E-Business

e-commerce

e-commerce is a transaction of buying or selling online. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail.

e-commerce businesses may employ some or all of the following:

• Online shopping web sites for retail sales direct to consumers
• Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process third-party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales
• Business-to-business buying and selling
• Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and social media
• Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange
• Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax (for example, with newsletters)
• Engaging in pretail for launching new products and services
• Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading purposes

What is E commerce?

The moment that an exchange of value occurs, e-business becomes e-commerce. E-commerce is the revenue generator for businesses that choose to use the Internet to sell their goods and services. Some small businesses rely on the Internet to grow and survive. Many small businesses also look to e-commerce for their own business needs, such as computers and office technology, capital equipment and supplies, office furnishings, inventory for online sale, or other business-related goods. This is not surprising considering the pervasiveness of the Internet for business transactions of all shapes and sizes.

Types of E-Commerce

There are several different types of e-commerce. A common classification system is with respect to the nature of transactions or the relationships among participants. There are seven major types of ecommerce:

1. Business-to-business (B2B)

e-commerce, where businesses focus on selling to other businesses or organizations, is the largest form of e-commerce. Cisco, Staples, and Spiceworks (information technology [IT] and IT networks for the small- and medium-sized business) are all B2B companies.

2. Business-to-consumer (B2C)

is the earliest form of e-commerce, but it is second in size to B2B. It refers to retail sales between businesses and individual consumers. Consumers gather information; purchase physical goods, such as books and clothing; purchase information goods, such as electronic material or digitized content, such as software; and, for information goods, receive products over an electronic network.

3. Consumer-to-consumer (C2C)

e-commerce is where consumers sell products and personal services to each other with the help of an online market maker to provide catalog, search engine, and transaction-clearing capabilities so that products can be easily displayed, discovered, and paid for. The most well-known C2C business is eBay, but there are many other online market makers as well. Craigslist is an extremely popular small e-commerce business for placing classified ads.

4. Business-to-government (B2G)

e-commerce can generally be defined as transactions with the government. The Internet is used for procurement, filing taxes, licensing procedures, business registrations, and other government-related operations. This is an insignificant segment of e-commerce in terms of volume, but it is growing.

5. Consumer-to-business (C2B)

e-commerce is between private individuals who use the Internet to sell products or services to organizations and individuals who seek sellers to bid on products or services. Elance is an example of C2B where a consumer posts a project with a set budget deadline and within hours companies and/or individuals review the consumer’s requirements and bid on the project. The consumer reviews the bids and selects the company or individual that will complete the project. Elance empowers consumers around the world by providing the meeting ground and platform for such transactions. The Best Deals on Hotels, Flights and Rental Cars. is a wellknown example of C2B e-commerce.

6. Mobile commerce (m-commerce)

refers to the purchase of goods and services through wireless technology, such as cell phones, and handheld devices, such as Blackberries and iPhones. Japan has the lead in m-commerce, but it is expected to grow rapidly in the United States over the next several years. eMarketer predicts mobile content revenues will grow to more than $3.53 billion in 2014, a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20 percent for the period 2009–2014, with the fastest growth coming from mobile music.

7. Peer-to-peer (P2P)

technology makes it possible for Internet users to share files and computer resources directly without having to go through a central web server. P2P began with Napster offering free music downloads via a file-sharing system. Tamago launched the world’s first P2P commerce system in 2005, which allowed people to sell every type of digital media directly from their computers to customers all over the world. People who publish videos, photos, music, e-books, and so forth can earn royalties, while buyers earn commissions for distributing media to others.

e-business

Electronic Business or e-business is a term which can be used for any kind of business or commercial transaction that includes sharing information across the internet. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Electronic commerce focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesses or e business refers to business with help of internet i.e. doing business with the help of internet network. The term "e-business" was coined by IBM's marketing and Internet team in 1996.

When organizations go online, they have to decide which e-business models best suit their goals. A business model is defined as the organization of product, service and information flows, and the source of revenues and benefits for suppliers and customers. The concept of e-business model is the same but used in the online presence.

What Is E business ?

So that we do not end up splitting hair, it is best to understand ebusiness with the help of examples:

• Email marketing to existing customers and prospects is an ebusiness activity, as it electronically conducts a business process -- in this case marketing.
• An online system that tracks inventory and triggers alerts at specific levels is also ebusiness. Inventory management is a business process. When facilitated electronically, it becomes part of ebusiness.
• A content management system that manages the work flow between content-developer, editor, manager, and publisher is another example of ebusiness. In the absence of an electronic work flow, the physical movement of paper files would conduct this process. By electronically enabling it, we are now in the realm of ebusiness.
• An online induction program for new employees automates part of the whole of its offline counterpart.

Business intelligence is about the activities that a small business may undertake to collect, store, access, and analyze information about its market or competition to help with decision making. When conducted online, BI is efficient and quick, helping companies to identify noteworthy trends and make better decisions faster. BI has been described as “the crystal ball of the 21st century.”

Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to “…a customer service approach that focuses on building long-term and sustainable customer relationships that add value for the customer and the company.” It is a company-wide strategy that brings together information from all data sources within an organization (and sometimes from external data sources) to give one holistic