What is E-Commerce ?

• Is the use of the Internet, the World Wide Web (Web), and mobile apps
and browsers running on mobile devices to transact business

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN E-COMMERCE AND E-BUSINESS

• E-commerce refers to the buying and selling of products or service over
the internet. This includes any type of transaction that takes place
online, such as online shopping ,online banking, online auctions, and
online bill payment.
• E-business refers to a broader concept that includes not only buying and
selling but also all other types of business processes that can be
conducted online, such as online marketing , customer relationship
management ,supply chain management and electronic data
interchange.

EIGHT UNIQUE FEATURES OF E-COMMERCE TECHNOLOGY

• Ubiquity – In traditional commerce, a marketplace is a physical place you
visit in order to transact.
• Global Reach – E-commerce technology permits commercial
transactions to cross cultural, regional, and national boundaries far more
conveniently and cost-effectively than is true in traditional commerce.
• Universal Standards – One strikingly unusual feature of e-commerce
technologies is that the technical standards of the Internet, and
therefore the technical standards for conducting e-commerce, are
universal standards, they are shared by all nations around the world.
• Richness – Information richness refers to the complexity and content of a
message (Evans and Wurster, 1999).
• Interactivity – e-commerce technologies allow for interactivity, meaning
they enable two-way communication between merchant and consumer
and among consumers.
• Information Density – E-commerce technologies vastly increase
information density-the total amount and quality of information
available to all market participants, consumers, and merchants alike.
 • Personalization/Customization – E-commerce technologies permit
personalization: merchants can target their marketing messages to
specific individuals by adjusting the message to a person’s name,
interests, and past purchases.
• Social Technology – In a way quite different from all previous
technologies, e-commerce technologies have evolved to be much more
social by allowing users to create and share content with a worldwide
community.
TYPES OF E-COMMERCE
• Business-to-Business (B2B) – in which businesses focus on selling to
other businesses, is the largest form of e-commerce.
• Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) – provides a way for consumers to sell to
each other, with the help of an online market maker (also called a
platform provider) such as eBay or Etsy.
• Mobile E-commerce (M-commerce) – refers to the use of mobile devices
to enable online transactions.
• Social E-commerce – is e-commerce that is enabled by social networks
and online social relationships.
• Local E-commerce – is a form of ecommerce that is focused on engaging
the consumer based on his or her current geographical location.

E-COMMERCE: A BRIEF HISTORY

• The history of e-commerce can be usefully divided into three periods:
1995–2000, the period of invention; 2001–2006, the period of
consolidation; and 2007–present, a period of reinvention with social,
mobile, and local expansion.
• E-COMMERCE 1995–2000: INVENTION – The early years of e-commerce
were a period of explosive growth and extraordinary innovation,
beginning in 1995 with the first widespread use of the Web to advertise
products. During this Invention period, e-commerce meant selling retail
goods, usually quite simple goods, on the Internet. There simply was not
enough bandwidth for more complex products.
• E-COMMERCE 2001–2006: CONSOLIDATION – In the second period of e-
commerce, from 2000 to 2006, a sobering period of reassessment of e-
commerce occurred, with many critics doubting its long-term prospects.
 Emphasis shifted to a more “business-driven” approach rather than
being technology driven; large traditional firms learned how to use the
Web to strengthen their market positions; brand extension and
strengthening became more important than creating new brands;
financing shrunk as capital markets shunned start-up firms; and
traditional bank financing based on profitability returned.
• E-COMMERCE 2007–PRESENT: REINVENTION – Beginning in 2007 with
the introduction of the iPhone, to the present day, e-commerce has been
transformed yet again by the rapid growth of Web 2.0 (a set of
applications and technologies that enable user-generated content, such
as online social networks, blogs, video and photo sharing sites, and
wikis), widespread adoption of consumer mobile devices such as
smartphones and tablet computers, the expansion of e-commerce to
include local goods and services, and the emergence of an on-demand
service economy enabled by millions of apps on mobile devices and
cloud computing.