OVERVIEW OF E-BUSINESS AND E-COMMERCE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Republic of (Free-Press-Release.com) February 3, 2012 -- 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 intrabusiness activities.
In this book we use the broadest meaning of electronic commerce, which
is basically equivalent to e-business. The two terms will be used interchangeably
throughout the chapter and the remainder of the text.
PURE VERSUS PARTIAL EC. 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).
Choi et al. (1997) created a framework that explains the possible configurations
of these three dimensions. 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 shirt at Wal-Mart Online or a book from Amazon.com is
partial EC, because the merchandise is physically delivered by a shipper. However,
buying an e-book from Amazon.com or a software product from Buy.com is pure
EC, because the product, its delivery, payment, and transfer agent are all done
online. In this book we use the term EC to denote either pure or partial EC.

EC ORGANIZATIONS. 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 (e.g., Wal-Mart Online).
Indeed, in many ways e-commerce is now simply a part of traditional commerce,
and like the introduction of innovations, such as barcodes, a generation
ago, many people expect companies to offer some form of e-commerce.

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