The buying and selling of products and services by businesses and consumers through an electronic medium, without using any paper documents.
E-commerce is widely considered the buying and selling of products over the internet, but any transaction that is completed solely through electronic measures can be considered e-commerce.
E-commerce is subdivided into three categories: business to business or B2B (Cisco), business to consumer or B2C (Amazon), and consumer to consumer or C2C (eBay).
Various forms of E-commerce
B2B(Business-to-Business)
Companies doing business with each other such as manufacturers selling to distributors and wholesalers selling to retailers. Pricing is based on quantity of order and is often negotiable.
B2C(Business-to-Consumer)
Businesses selling to the general public typically through catalogs utilizing.
Companies doing business with each other such as manufacturers selling to distributors and wholesalers selling to retailers. Pricing is based on quantity of order and is often negotiable.
C2B(Consumer-to-Business)
A consumer posts his project with a set budget online and within hours companies review the consumer's requirements and bid on the project. The consumer reviews the bids and selects the company that will complete the project. Enlace empowers consumers around the world by providing the meeting ground and platform for such transactions.
C2C(Consumer-to-Consumer)
There are many sites offering free classifieds, auctions, and forums where individuals can buy and sell thanks to online payment systems like PayPal where people can send and receive money online with ease. eBay's auction service is a great example of where person-to-person transactions take place everyday since 1995
E-Commerce Success factor
A Basic fact of internet retailing is that all retail Web sites are created equal as far as the “location” imperative of success related is concerned.
Selection and value
Obviously, a business must offer Web shopping a good selection of attractive product and service at competitive price, or the shoppers will quickly click away from a web store.
Performance and service
People don’t want to be kept waiting when browsing , selecting, or paying in a web store. A must be efficiently designed for ease of access, shopping, buying, with sufficient server power and network capacity to support web site traffic .
Advertising and incentives
Some web store may advertise in traditional media, most advertise on the web with targeted and personalized banner and other web page and E-mail promotions. Most B2C site also offers shopping incentive to buy and return.
Personal attention
Personalizing your shopping experience encourages you to buy and make return visits. Thus, e-commerce software can automatically record details of your visits and build user profiles of you and other web shopping.
Security and reliability
As a customer of success web store, you must feel conflict that your credit card, personal information, and details of your transaction are secure from unauthorized use. You must also feel that you are dealing with a trustworthy business whose products and other web site information you can trust to be advertised.
