E-Commerce
Definition:
E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and
services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network,
primarily the internet. These business transactions occur either as
business-to-business, business-to-consumer, consumer-to-consumer or
consumer-to-business.
Meaning:
E-Commerce
or Electronics Commerce is a methodology of modern business which addresses the
need of business organizations.
E-commerce
refers to paperless exchange of business information using following
ways.
- Electronic
Data Exchange (EDI)
- Electronic
Mail (e-mail)
- Electronic
Bulletin Boards
- Electronic
Fund Transfer (EFT)
Features:
E-Commerce
provides following features
·
Non-Cash Payment − E-Commerce enables use of credit cards,
debit cards, smart cards, electronic fund transfer via bank's website and other
modes of electronics payment.
·
24x7 Service
availability − E-commerce automates
business of enterprises and services provided by them to customers are available
anytime, anywhere. Here 24x7 refers to 24 hours of each seven days of a
week.
·
Advertising /
Marketing − E-commerce increases
the reach of advertising of products and services of businesses. It helps in
better marketing management of products / services.
·
Improved Sales − Using E-Commerce, orders for the products
can be generated any time, any where without any human
intervention. By this way, dependencies to buy a product reduce at large and
sales increases.
·
Support − E-Commerce provides various ways to
provide pre sales and post sales assistance to provide better services to
customers.
·
Inventory
Management − Using E-Commerce,
inventory management of products becomes automated. Reports get generated
instantly when required. Product inventory management becomes very efficient and
easy to maintain.
·
Communication
improvement − E-Commerce provides
ways for faster, efficient, reliable communication with customers and
partners.
E-Commerce
– Advantages
·
An organization can easily locate more customers, best
suppliers and suitable business partners across the globe.
·
E-Commerce helps organization to reduce the cost to create
process, distribute, retrieve and manage the paper based information by
digitizing the information.
·
E-commerce improves the brand image of the
company.
·
E-commerce helps organization to provide better customer
services.
·
E-Commerce helps to simplify the business processes and
make them faster and efficient.
·
E-Commerce reduces paper work a lot.
·
24x7 support. E-Commerce
application provides user more options and quicker delivery of
products.
E-Commerce
- Disadvantages
·
There can be lack of system security, reliability or
standards owing to poor implementation of e-Commerce.
·
Software development industry is still evolving and keeps
changing rapidly.
·
Initial cost: The cost of
creating / building E-Commerce application in-house may be very high. There
could be delay in launching the E-Commerce application due to mistakes, lack of
experience.
·
Security/ Privacy: Difficult to ensure security or privacy
on online transactions.
·
Lack of touch or feel of products during online
shopping.
E-Commerce
- Business Models
E-Commerce
or Electronics Commerce business models can generally categorized in following
categories.
- Business
- to - Business (B2B)
- Business
- to - Consumer (B2C)
- Consumer
- to - Consumer (C2C)
Business
- to - Business (B2B)
Website
following B2B business model sells its product to an intermediate buyer who then
sells the product to the final customer. As an example, a wholesaler places an
order from a company's website and after receiving the consignment, sells the
end product to final customer who comes to buy the product at wholesaler's
retail outlet.
Business
- to - Consumer(B2C)
Website
following B2C business model sells its product directly to a customer. A
customer can view products shown on the website of business organization. The
customer can choose a product and order the same. Website will send a
notification to the business organization via email and organization will
dispatch the product/goods to the customer.
Consumer
- to - Consumer (C2C)
Website
following C2C business model helps consumer to sell their assets like
residential property, cars, motorcycles etc. or rent a room by publishing their
information on the website. Website may or may not charge the consumer for its
services. Another consumer may opt to buy the product of the first customer by
viewing the post/advertisement on the website.
