ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

•This involves performing commercial operations electronically.

•In a usual commercial operation ,buyers and sellers come in contact with each other either physically or through other means of communication and rest of the buying/selling procedure is performed in physical sense.

•However in e-commerce the entire process, including the contact between buyers and sellers, is completed through the use of IT .

• E-Commerce refers to all the forms of transactions related to commercial activities, including both organizations and individuals, that are based upon the processing and transmission of digitized data, including text, sound, and visual images.

• E-Commerce is about doing business electronically. It is based on the electronic processing and transmission of data , including text, sound and video. It encompasses diverse activities including electronic fund transfers, electronic share trading, commercial auctions etc.

E-Commerce applications

1. Business to business(B2B)

2. Business to consumer(B2C)

3. Business to government(B2G)

4. Consumer to administration(C2A)

Business to Business(B2B)

• It involves electronic transactions for business activity between two or more business organization

• This type of e-commerce model is becoming increasingly important as most business organizations are reengineering their business processes in which other organizations may play a vital role.

• B2B enables business partners to exchange information among themselves in an automated way without the human intervention

Business to consumer(B2C)

• Involves bringing business and consumers closer to each other and creating a unique market place where products and services can be bought and sold.

• It is conducted by providing well-designed websites which offer information about products/services to be sold, display these with description, price in the same manner as conventional shops do.

• It not only provide source of trade but also acts as supporting activities that that help to generate revenue to companies.

• Examples are shopping sites, home banking, entertainment services- video on demand, movies, games etc

Business to government(B2G)

• Involves dealing with government agencies like customs, excise duties etc, electronically

• Usually a lot of paper work is involved resulting into delay in paper processing which hampers efficiency of business organizations.

• Instead of this lengthy and time consuming paper work , B2G e-commerce application connects various government agencies and business organizations electronically which helps in speedy processing of business documents thereby enhancing productivity of business organizations.

Consumer to administration(C2A)

• It involves providing relevant information to people by government administrative agencies.

• Instead of visiting government offices for getting relevant information, people can get this information through C2A websites.

E- product/service Trading

• E-commerce adopts the same process of trading as is involved in a conventional trading but it adopts electronic media and therefore various activities involved are performed differently.

ORDER ORDER ORDER

• PAYMENT PAYMENT PAYMENT

Producer wholesaler Retailer consumer

E-commerce cycle

SellerSeller

websiteCustomer Shipment Payment

information

order

BENEFITS OF E-COMMERCE

• Wide market area• Ease of operation• Lower transaction costs• Lower inventory requirement• Shopping from home/workplace• Increase seller-customer interaction

PROBLEMS OF E-COMMERCE

• Technological problems• Lack of verification of product quality• Legal problems

ELECTRONIC SHARE TRADING

Benefits• Wide area coverage• Speedy transactions and settlement• Reduced transaction costs

• Transparent transactions

• Lower paper work• Elimination of bad deliveries

Problems:

• Smaller towns and in some big towns too, do not have the facility of fund transfer

E-BANKING

• It involves providing banking services to customers electronically and are classified into two categories

• On-line banking transactions• Electronic funds transfer

E-GOVERNANCE

• It involves enhancing relationships between government to government, government to citizens, citizens to government, government to private sector, and non- government organizations to government through the use of information, communication technology.

• E-governance is not merely providing information about various activities of government to its citizens and other organizations but it also involves citizens to communicate with v and participate in v decision-making process.

Electronic data interchange

• It is inter-company computer-computer communication of data in a machine readable ,structured format.

• It is an information system that links a company with which it has some kind of transaction relationships, such as customers, suppliers, banks, etc

Benefits• Reduced cost of operations• Increased speed of information exchange and processing• Shrinking of time period required to complete a business cycle• Improve trading partner relationships• Improved intra-company information flow