n today's world of information technology, e-commerce has become one of the most effective ways of doing business. Such is the extent of e-commerce that it enables businesses of any type or kinds generate additional profits apart from delivering enhanced services to customers across the globe.
E-commerce or Electronic Commerce is the trade of products and services by means of the Internet or other computer networks. E-commerce follows the same basic principles as traditional commerce that is, buyers and sellers come together to swap commodities for money. But rather than conducting business in the traditional way in shopping stores or through mail order catalogs and telephone operators - in e-commerce buyers and sellers transact business over networked computers.
E-commerce offers buyers maximum convenience. They can visit the web sites of multiple vendors round the clock a day to compare prices and make purchases, without having to leave their homes or offices from around the globe. In some cases, consumers can immediately obtain a product or service, such as an electronic book, a music file, or computer software, by downloading it over the Internet.
For sellers, e-commerce offers a way to cut costs and expand their markets. They do not need to build, staff, or maintain a physical store or print and distribute mail order catalogs. Automated order tracking and billing systems cut additional labor costs, and if the product or service can be downloaded then e-commerce firms have no distribution costs involved. Because the products can be sold sell over the global Internet, sellers have the potential to market their products or services globally and are not limited by the physical location of a store. Internet technologies also permit sellers to track the interests and preferences of their customers with the customer's permission and then use this information to build an ongoing relationship with the customer by customizing products and services to meet the customer's needs.
The meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
Perhaps it is introduced from the Telephone Exchange Office. The earliest example of many-to-many electronic commerce in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet online system introduced in 1991.
The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily since the spread of the Internet. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.
A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes known as e-tailors and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.
Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as Business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market).
Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.
Ecommerce (e-commerce) or electronic commerce, a subset of ebusiness, is the purchasing, selling, and exchanging of goods and services over computer networks (such as the Internet) through which transactions or terms of sale are performed electronically. Contrary to popular belief, ecommerce is not just on the Web. In fact, ecommerce was alive and well in business to business transactions before the Web back in the 70s via EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) through VANs (Value-Added Networks). Ecommerce can be broken into four main categories: B2B, B2C, C2B, and C2C.
Having a hard time finding a book? Need to purchase a custom, high-end computer system? How about a first class, all-inclusive trip to a tropical island? With the advent ecommerce, all three things can be purchased literally in minutes without human interaction. Oh how far we've come!
Companies using internal networks to offer their employees products and services online--not necessarily online on the Web--are engaging in B2E (Business-to-Employee) ecommerce.
The concept of e-commerce is fast becoming advantageous for both the vendor and consumer in today's fast moving and electronically-connected world.
For many businesses, e-commerce is becoming the only option, as companies become more and more interested in expanding their operations online. E-commerce has many benefits and advantages not found in the typical brick and mortar location, and therefore, explains why so many businesses are flocking to the web.
E-commerce offers advantages that include the ability to expand into global markets with a minimum of expense, thus allowing firms to reach narrow market segments that are geographically scattered
As the Internet is a cost effective medium of delivery, the main advantage of online ecommerce is its cost efficiency. And here's why: Ecommerce decreases the cost of creating, processing, distributing, storing and retrieving paper-based information. High mailing and printing costs are also lowered or, in many cases, completely eliminated as the buyer most often pays for the shipping of the products that they buy.
Ecommerce work in following areas:
Ecommerce Services are a fast, effective, reliable and scalable platform which allows you to address your present and future requirements of your business whatever the size. Customers benefit from a vast array of well-thought out customer interaction functionality, site promotion and content management that allows their web sites to offer best-of-breed customer experiences and keep their sites ahead of the competition while keeping costs down.Doing business online also has the advantage of removing barriers of global trading due to the fact that the Internet is a zero-cost delivery channel, and thus, many products and services, which are generally delivered as a physical object or service, are now delivered virtually in the form of data. This removes barriers such as time, distance and of course cost.
E-commerce marketing also allow for real-time communications and the interchange of data in the supply chain, making the supply chain more effective. By having better visibility across the supply chain, company inventory levels can be reduced, as supplies are more predictable. With lower inventory levels, costs can once again be automatically be decreased.
Lastly, this sort of ecommerce also allows information to flow freely between cooperating businesses, making it easier and simpler for organizations to share information.
Ecommerce Application is powered with the Following advantages: