Chapter 6: Overview of e-business and e-commerce

Definition and concept

E-commerce is a process of buying, selling, transferring or exchanging products, services or information over a computer network. As the definition suggests, e-commerce is a process that heavily focuses on transactional activities. In some cases, the term e-commerce is always confused with the term e-business. The while the earlier focuses on a process, the latter goes beyond a transactional activity. It is a broader concept of an e-commerce.

e-business domain extends beyond the realms of e-commerce. Although these two terms are similar, e-business includes activities such as servicing customers, collaborating with business partners and intra-organisation transactions.

Types of e-commerce

There are several types of e-commerce. They are categorized based on the types of transaction. These are :

1.       B2C: business-to-consumer. The selling party is a business organisation and the buying party is an individual customer.

2. B2B: business-to-business. Both buying and selling parties are organisations.

3. C2C: consumer-to-consumer. in this case, both buying and selling parties are individual customers.

4. B2E: Business-to-employee. Organisation uses the e-commerce technologies to provide information and services to its employees.

5. E-government. The use of e-commerce technology by government or government agencies to provide information and services to citizens.

6. m-commerce. Also known as mobile commerce where e-commerce activities are conducted entirely in a wireless environment.

Limitations of e-commerce

1.  Concern over security and privacy - personal data and sensitive information such as credit card numbers stored in a merchant's server may be exposed to theft. Therefore, customers may not be fully comfortable to conduct an online purchase.
2. Concern over Trust issue - customers are very concern with trust. Since the online company,especially a pure-play e-commerce company can be anywhere, after-sales service may be hard to get.
3. Lost of physical touch and feel - Physical products sold over the internet can be different from customers' expectation. Therefore, customers may choose to buy the products from an ordinary outlet.

by- Nor Atiqqah Mustafa