Electronic Commerce

Electronic commerce (EC or e-commerce) describes the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, or information via computer networks, including the Internet. Some people view the term commerce as describing only transactions conducted between business partners. When this definition is used, some people find the term electronic commerce to be fairly narrow. Thus, many use the term e-business instead. E-business refers to a broader definition of EC, not just the buying and selling of goods and services, but also servicing customers, collaborating with business partners, conducting e-learning, and conducting electronic transactions within an organization. Others view e-business as the " other than buying and selling" activities on the Internet, such as collaboration and intra business activities.

Electronic commerce is basically equivalent to e-business. The two terms maybe used interchangeably.

Electronic commerce can take several forms depending on the degree of digitization– the transformation from physical to digital – involved. The degree of digitization can relate to: (1) the product (service) sold, (2) the process, or (3) the delivery agent (or intermediary).

A product can be physical or digital, the process can be physical or digital, and the delivery agent can be physical or digital. In traditional commerce all three dimensions are physical. Purely physical organizations are referred to as brick-and-mortar organizations. In pure EC all dimensions are digital. All other combinations that include a mix of digital and physical dimensions are considered EC (but not pure EC).

If there is at least one digital dimension, we consider the situation partial EC. For example, buying a book from some on-line shop is partial EC, because the merchandise is physically delivered by a shipper. However buying an e-book or a software product from another on-line shop is pure EC, because the product, its delivery, payment, and transfer agent are all done online.

Companies that are engaged only in EC are considered virtual (or pure-play) organizations. Click-and-mortar (or click-and-brick) organizations are those that conduct some e-commerce activities, yet their primary business is done in the physical world.

Gradually, many brick-and-mortar companies are changing to click-and-mortar ones. Indeed, in many ways e-commerce is now simply a part of traditional commerce, and like the introduction of innovations such as bar codes a generation ago, many people expect companies to offer some form of e-commerce.