Ecommerce, also known as Electronic Commerce, is a general term for business dealing, involving the transfer of information across the internet. In this system, customers select products and buy them using a charged card through a shopping cart system. Shopping cart allows a consumer to buy goods or services, and bind the customer with all aspects of ecommerce activities.
There are different variations of ecommerce activities and depend on the type of business the company. The range of businesses covered includes consumer based retail sites, auction or music sites, trading goods or services between corporations among others. Ecommerce development is currently the most emerging aspect for businesses around the world.
Consumers can exchange goods and services through ecommerce without any constraint of time or distance. The past few years have seen a rapid growth of ecommerce activity, and given the current growth rate, the boundaries between conventional and electronic commerce will get blurred in a short time, with the shifting of more business activities on to the Internet.
In ecommerce, there is a wide application of the term B2B, which means Business to Business transaction instead of a business and a consumer, which is known as B2C. There could be hundreds or even thousands of business dealings either as consumers or suppliers.
Electronic transactions over the Internet give a major edge over the traditional methods. Ecommerce is faster, cheaper and provides better convenience compared to the traditional style of business dealings.
Electronic Data Interchange or EDI is the forerunner of the present-day ecommerce electronic transactions. In EDI, a dedicated data link between supplier and customer was used for all electronic transactions. In ecommerce, there is multiple ad-hoc links in place of data link and has proved a very cost-effective technique. As result of ecommerce, many electronic market places have come up to bring together potential customers and suppliers for a mutually beneficial trade.