What is E-commerce?

The activity of electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet is called e-commerce. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), and automated data collection systems.

E-commerce typically uses the internet for at least a part of a transaction’s life cycle but may also use other technologies such as email. The typical e-commerce transactions include those that are related to buying products or services such as downloading music from iTunes.

There are three areas of e-commerce:

1.       online retailing

2.       electronic markets

3.       online auctions.

E-commerce businesses may also employ some or all of the following:

1.   Online shopping is the process by which companies offer goods or services to consumers via a website, web-based application, social media site or an app.
2.     Online marketplaces are places where people can buy and sell things. Some of these marketplaces are for business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, while others are just for consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sales.
3.     B2B transactions
4.     Gathering and using demographic data obtained from web contacts and social media.
5. Electronic data interchange
6.    Marketing to customers by email or fax
7.  Participating in pre-release activities before a company releases its products or service.
8.  Foreign currency trading is typically conducted over the internet in order to facilitate international trade.

Some common applications related to electronic commerce are:

• B2B e-commerce (business-to-business)
• B2C e-commerce (business-to-consumer)
• Conversational commerce : e-commerce via chat
•  Digital Wallet
• Document automation in supply chain and logistics
•  Electronic tickets
• Enterprise content management
• Group buying
• Instant messaging
• Internet security
• Online auction
•  Online banking
• Online office suites
• Online shopping and order tracking
• Online transaction processing
• Pretail
• Print on demand
• Shopping cart software
• Social networking
• Teleconference
• Usenet newsgroup
• Virtual assistant
•  Domestic and international payment systems