E-Commerce

Electronic Commerce

The conduct to exchange or trade all information needed in terms of transacting goods or services electronically among people, firms, and governments via digital media.

What’s important here is that e commerce is a commerce that is conducted electronically. Therefore, one should focus on the activity or procedure itself involved in selling and buying goods and services with any electronic means including not just internet commerce but home shopping or phone banking as well. Consequently, this makes it clear to differentiate e-commerce from e-business, which is the new way of business to replace the traditional one based on IT in order to optimize the outcome of a company. In this sense, e-business covers all aspects of business such as marketing, operations, finance, and human resources whereas e commerce only deals with transaction and other activities that are involved in transaction.

Also, one should take into account in whose perspective one activity is considered because , taking the example of buying a car from last class, there might not be an e commerce between the potential buyer and the company since there is no actual transaction or an activity which has something to do with an actual transaction( it might be controversial but the potential buyer was literally checking the site only for the information he /she might get. The potential buyer did not mean to purchase though internet). However, there was a clear transaction going on between the company and website based on the number of hits, so e commerce did exist on the B2B side.