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The term E-Business was coined by IBM

The, term E-Business was coined in 1996

(b) E-Business is a subset of E-Commerce

(c) Digital publishing sites

In B2B E-Commerce, commercial transactions take place between different business organizations, through the Internet. For example, a cycle company may buy tyres from another company for their cycles. When compared to other models, the value per transaction in B2B transaction is high, because of bulk purchases. The company also might get the advantage of discounts on bulk purchases. Out-sourcing and Off-shoring are generally associated with B2B E-Commerce.

1. If a company’s work is hired to another company, it would be termed as out-sourcing. 

2. If the work is outsourced to a company, which is outside of its own country, is termed as offshoring.

Outsourcing and Offshoring comes under B2B Business models

Name-your-price sites are just like normal retail sites. In contrast, the buyer negotiates with the retailer for a particular product or service, https://in.hotels.com

(b) Work outsourced to new employees

Physical product disputes are a major disadvantage in E-Commerce. E-Commerce purchases are often made on trust. This is because, we do not have physical access to the product. Through Internet is an effective channel for visual and auditory information it does not allow full scope for our senses.

We can see pictures of the perfumes, but could not smell their fragrance; we can see pictures of a cloth, but not its quality. If we want to inspect something, we choose what we look at and how we look at it. But in online shopping, we would see only the pictures the seller had chosen for us. People are often much more comfortable in buying the generic goods (that they have seen or experienced before and in which there is little ambiguity) rather than unique or complex things via the Internet.

Traditional vs E-Commerce:

Traditional Commerce:

1. Traditional commerce is buying or selling of products and services physically.

2. Customer can easily identify, authenticate and talk to the merchant.

3. Physical stores are not feasible to be open all the time.

4. Products can be inspected physically before purchase.

5. Scope of business is limited to particular area.

6. Resource focus Supply side.

7. Business Relationship is Linear.

8. Marketing is one way marketing.

9. Payment is made by cash, cheque, cards etc.

10. Most goods are delivered instantly.

E-Commerce:

1. E-Commerce carries out commercial transactions electronically on the Internet.

2. Neither customer nor merchant see the other.

3. It is always available on all time and all days of the year.

4. Products can’t be inspected physically before purchase.

5. Scope of business is global. Vendors can expand their business Worldwide.

6. Resource focus Demand side.

7. Business Relationship is End-to-end.

8. One-to-one marketing.

9. Payment system is mostly credit card and through fund transfer.

10. It takes time to transport goods.

The Development and Growth of Electronic Commerce:

Economists describe four distinct waves (or phases) that occurred in the Industrial Revolution. In each wave, different business strategies were successful. Electronic commerce and the information revolution brought about by the Internet likely go through such series of waves.

The First Wave of Electronic Commerce: 1995 -2003 (i) The Dotcom companies of first wave are mostly American companies. Thereby their websites were only in English. The Dotcom bubble had attracted huge investments to first wave companies.

(ii)As the Internet was mere read-only web (web 1.0) and network technology was in its beginning stage, the bandwidth and network security was very low.

(iii) Only EDI and unstructured E-mail remained as a mode of information exchange between businesses.

(iv) But the first wave companies enjoyed the firstmove advantage and customers had left with no options.

The Second Wave of Electronic Commerce: 2004 – 2009

(i) The second wave is the rebirth of E-Commerce after the dotcom burst. The second wave is considered as the global wave, with sellers doing business in many countries and in many languages.

(ii) Language translation and currency conversion were focused in the second wave websites.

(iii) The second wave companies used their own internal funds and gradually expanded their ECommerce opportunities.

(iv) As a result E-Commerce grows more steadily, though more slowly. The rapid development of network technologies and interactive web (web 2.0, a period of social media) offered the consumers more choices of buying. The increased web users nourished E-Commerce companies (mostly B2C companies) during the second wave.

The Third Wave of Electronic Commerce: 2010 – Present

(i) The third wave is brought on by the mobile technologies. It connects users via mobile devices for real-time and on-demand transactions, mobile technologies.

(ii) It connects users via mobile devices for real-time and on-demand transactions. Not only the information is filtered by time, but also the geographic coordinates are used to screen the specific location-tailored information properly.

(iii) The term Web 3.0, summarize the various characteristics of the future Internet which include Artificial Intelligence, Semantic Web. Generic Database etc.

1. Augument reality

2. Virtual Reality

3. Augument Reality

4. Blog

5. Brick and Mortar

6. Word press

A company can be called E-Business if and only if –

1. It has the ability to conduct business electronically over Internet.

2. It manages payment transaction through Internet.

3. It has a platform for selling products & services via Internet.

1. People won’t buy all products online:

There are certain products like high price jewels, clothes or furnishings which people might not like to buy online. They might want to, inspect it, feel the texture of the fabric etc. which are not possible in ECommerce. As the online shopping does not allow physical inspection, customers have to rely on electronic images of the products.

E-Commerce is an effective means for buying known and established services, that is, things that are being used every day. Example booking tickets, buying books, music CDs and software. It is not suitable for dealing with the new or unexpected. Traditional commerce always takes advantage when it is perishables and touch and feel products.

2. Competition and Corporate vulnerability:

Access to Global Market is an beneficial on one hand but it also come with a competition. Open Internet has paved way to all business firms to operate in the global market. Many businesses have been already facing international competition from web-enabled business opponents.

The competitors may access product details, catalogs, and other information about a business through its website and makes it vulnerable. They might then indulge in web harvesting. Web harvesting is the illegal activity of extracting business intelligence from competitor’s web pages.

3. Security:

Security remains to be a problem for E-Commerce. Customers might be reluctant to give their credit card number to the website. As lot of cyber frauds takes place in E-Commerce transactions, people generally afraid to provide their personal information. Legal issues arise when the customer’s data falls in the hands of strangers. Fraudulent activities in traditional commerce is comparatively less as there is personal interaction between the buyer and the seller.

4. Customer loyalty:

Business cannot survive long without loyal customers. The customers would like to buy from a website where they are able to get the best deal. They cannot be loyal to a particular seller.

In traditional commerce, shopkeeper would interact with the consumer “faceto-face” and gain their loyalty too. In E-Commerce, the interaction between the business and the consumer is “screen-to-face”. The customers would feel that they do not have received sufficient personal attention. Since there is no personal touch in E-Business, companies could not win over their loyalty easily.

5. Shortage of skilled employees:

Though most of the process in E-Commerce is automated, some sectors like packaging and delivery, needs manual interventions. There could be problems related to shipping delays which would need technically qualified staff with an aptitude to resolve.

E-Commerce has difficulty in recruiting, training and retaining talented people. There is a great shortage of skilled employees. Traditional organizational structures and poor work cultures in some places inhibit the growth of E-Commerce.

6. Size and value of transactions:

The delivery cost of a pen surpasses the cost of pen itself. E-Commerce is most often conducted using credit card for payments, and as a result very small and very large transactions tend not to be conducted online.

When a company get paid for its goods, services by the Government through Internet it is called as B2G model.

Tangible goods:

Tangible form – e.g. a digital camera purchased by a consumer from an online. shopping website which might be delivered at the requested address. 

Electronic goods:

Electronic form – e.g. a music album or a software downloaded from a site which might be delivered in electronic form.

E-Commerce can be described as the process of buying or selling products, services or information via computer networks.