Electronic Business

Electronic business, or e-business, is defined may be defined as the application for information and communication technologies in support of all the activities of business (1). E-business is not the same thing as e-commerce; however e-commerce is a subset of e-business. E-business falls more into the category of the functions that go on while using electronic capabilities. E-commerce, as a subset of e-business, is more concerned with the revenue of the business by using Internet functions. Electronic Commerce is one of three subsets of electronic business. The other two subsets consist of internal business systems and enterprise communication and collaboration.

E-commerce is a term for any type of business or commercial transaction that involves the transfer of information across the Internet (2). E-commerce usually refers to the buying and selling of products on the Internet. However, it can also refer to more than that. E-commerce can in fact refer to the marketing of products online or even the process of developing and servicing a product. A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely in electronic form for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website (1).

There are two types of electronic commerce. These different types of e-commerce include business-to-business electronic commerce and business-to-consumer electronic commerce. Business¬¬ to business electronic commerce is companies buying from and selling to each other online. But there's more to it than purchasing (3). An example of a company that uses business-to-business electronic commerce is Dell. Business-to-business e-commerce helps Dell by quickly integrating with customers who are capable today and helping customers build a business-to-business solution for quicker consumption. Business-to-consumer electronic commerce is the process of buying and selling products using the Internet rather than methods like catalog orders or maintaining a brick or mortar establishment (4). One significant benefit to business-to-consumer electronic commerce is that the consumer has the ability to place orders for shopping at any time of the day because the online stores are programmed to allow orders to come in during any time. Another advantage to the business-to-consumer type of electronic commerce is that since you are buying or selling online, you can buy or sell products from all over the world as oppose to when you go to a store to buy something and having to physically be in the store.

I found the electronic commerce subset of electronic business to be fascinating because I feel that it truly showcases how technologically advanced the world of business has become over the years.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_business
2. http://www.networksolutions.com/education/what-is-ecommerce/
3. http://www.netessence.com.cy/downloads/b2b.pdf
4. http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-business-to-consumer-e-commerce.htm