What is E-commerce

Distributing, buying, selling and marketing products and services over electronic systems E-business for commercial transactions Involves supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, EDI Uses electronic technology such as: - Internet - Extranet/Intranet - Protocols

E-commerce Today
The Internet is the perfect vehicle for ecommerce because of its open standards and structure. No other methodology or technology has proven to work as well as the Internet for distributing information and bringing people together. Its cheap and relatively easy to use it as a medium for connecting customers, suppliers, and employees of a firm. No other mechanism has been created that allow organizations to reach out to anyone and everyone like the Internet.

E-commerce Today
The Internet allows big businesses to act like small ones and small businesses to act big. The challenge to businesses is to make transactions not just cheaper and easier for themselves but also easier and more convenient for customers and suppliers. Its more than just posting a nice looking Web site with lots of cute animations and expecting customers and suppliers to figure it out Web-based solutions must be easier to use and more convenient than traditional methods if a company hopes to attract and keep customers.

Four Categories of E-Commerce

Business originating from... Business Consumers

Business And selling to...

B2B

C2B

Consumers

B2C

C2C

Distinct Categories of E-Commerce

Business to Business (B2B) refers to the full spectrum of e-commerce that can occur between two organizations. This includes purchasing and procurement, supplier management, inventory management, channel management, sales activities, payment management & service and support. Examples: FreeMarkets, Dell and General Electric Business to Consumer (B2C) refers to exchanges between business and consumers, activities tracked are consumer search, frequently asked questions and service and

Distinct Categories of E-Commerce

(contd)

Peer to Peer (C2C) exchanges involve transactions between and among consumers. These can include third party involvement, as in the case of the auction website Ebay. Examples: Owners.com, Craiglist, Monster Consumer to Business (C2B) involves when consumers band together to present themselves as a buyer in group. Example: www.planetfeedback.com

Definition
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a set of standards for structuring information that is to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses, organizations, government entities and other groups, without human intervention. An inter-company, application-to-application communication of data in standard format for business transactions.

Financial EDI and its types

Financial EDI (FEDI) is the computer-to-computer exchange of payment and payment-related information between companies using a standard format. Unlike other forms of EDI, such as exchange of price quotes or purchase orders, financial EDI always involves a bank because a financial transaction (a payment) is being effected. Due to this fact, a new business opportunity now exists for banks in the cash management industry. Wholesale or B2B payments is accomplished by using Checks, EFT and automated clearinghouses (ACH).

 Bank Checks: Checks are instrument for debit transfers where payees collect funds from payers. Electronic Funds Transfer: EFT are credit transfers between the banks where funds flows directly from the payers bank to the payees bank. These are instantaneous payments. Businesses use EFT when timeliness and certainty of payments are paramount. These on-line transactions are carried out on private network. Automated Clearinghouse (ACH): ACH transfers are used to process high volumes of relatively small payments for settlement in one or two business days. It provides preauthorized credits, such as direct deposit of payrolls and preauthorized debits, such as repetitive bill payments. Business use ACH credit transfers to pay for goods or services and to make tax payment to government.

BENEFITS OF EDI
EDI saves a company money and time by providing an alternative to, or replacing information flows that require a great deal of human interaction and materials such as paper documents, meetings, faxes, etc. Makes possible to business in Global Marketplace as it overcomes the problem of different time zones. Allows to cope up with growing avalanche of paperwork like purchase orders, invoices, confirmation notice, shipping receipts, and other documents by more work automation to occur.

 Introduced a highly competitive electronic commerce environment as many retailers and manufactures can now easily recognize and meet their customers need much faster than the past. EDI minimize the time companies spend to identify and resolve interbusiness problems. Many problems come from data-entry errors which could be eliminated by EDI. Improve customer services by enabling the quick transfer of documents and a marked decrease in errors.

M-Commerce
E-Commerce with mobile devices (PDAs, Smart Phones, Cell Phones, Pagers, etc.) "M-Commerce is the use of mobile devices to communicate, inform transact and entertain using text and data via a connection to public and private networks." Different than E-Commerce? No, but additional challenges:
Security Usability Heterogeneous Technologies Business Model Issues

Examples of M-commerce
Purchasing airline tickets Purchasing movie tickets Restaurant booking and reservation Hotel booking and reservation Mobile banking Mobile purchases (shopping) Mobile investment (stock market transactions)

Challenges
Less processing power on devices
Slow Certain crypto operations drain batteries

Less memory Few devices have crypto accelerators, or support for biometric authentication No tamper resistance (memory can be tampered with, no secure storage) Primitive operating systems w/ no support for access control (Palm OS)