Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm,

consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as
the Internet and other computer networks. It is more than just buying and selling products
online. It also includes the entire online process of developing, marketing, selling,
delivering, servicing and paying for products and services. The amount of trade
conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The
use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in
electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online
transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management
systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically
uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it
can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices and
telephones as well.

A large percentage of electronic commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual

items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce
involves the transportation of physical items in some way. Online retailers are sometimes
known as e-tailers and online retail is sometimes known as e-tail. Almost all big retailers
have electronic commerce presence on the World Wide Web.

Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as business-to-

business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or
limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market). Electronic
commerce that is conducted between businesses and consumers, on the other hand, is
referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce
conducted by companies such as Amazon.com. Online shopping is a form of electronic
commerce where the buyer is directly online to the seller's computer usually via the
internet. There is no intermediary service. The sale and purchase transaction is completed
electronically and interactively in real-time such as Amazon.com for new books. If an
intermediary is present, then the sale and purchase transaction is called electronic
commerce such as eBay.com.

Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also

consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the
business transactions.
Online transaction processing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Online transaction processing, or OLTP, refers to a class of systems that facilitate and
manage transaction-oriented applications, typically for data entry and retrieval transaction
processing. The term is somewhat ambiguous; some understand a "transaction" in the
context of computer or database transactions, while others (such as the Transaction
Processing Performance Council) define it in terms of business or commercial
transactions.[1] OLTP has also been used to refer to processing in which the system
responds immediately to user requests. An automatic teller machine (ATM) for a bank is
an example of a commercial transaction processing application.

The technology is used in a number of industries, including banking, airlines, mailorder,

supermarkets, and manufacturing. Applications include electronic banking, order
processing, employee time clock systems, e-commerce, and eTrading. The most widely
used OLTP system is probably IBM's CICS.[2]

Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of a network of interconnected

businesses involved in the ultimate provision of product and service packages required by
end customers (Harland, 1996).[1] Supply chain management spans all movement and
storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of
origin to point of consumption (supply chain).

Another definition is provided by the APICS Dictionary when it defines SCM as the
"design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the
objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging
worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance
globally."

Electronic funds transfer or EFT is the electronic exchange or transfer of money from
one account to another, either within a single financial institution or across multiple
institutions, through computer-based systems.

The term is used for a number of different concepts:

 Cardholder-initiated transactions, where a cardholder makes use of a payment

card
 Direct deposit payroll payments for a business to its employees, possibly via a
payroll service bureau
 Direct debit payments, sometimes called electronic checks, for which a business
debits the consumer's bank accounts for payment for goods or services
  Electronic bill payment in online banking, which may be delivered by EFT or
paper check
 Transactions involving stored value of electronic money, possibly in a private
currency
 Wire transfer via an international banking network (carries a higher fee in North
America)
 Electronic Benefit Transfer

In 1978 U.S. Congress passed the Electronic Funds Transfer Act to establish the rights
and liabilities of consumers as well as the responsibilities of all participants in EFT
activities in the United States.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) is the structured transmission of data between

organizations by electronic means. It is used to transfer electronic documents or business
data from one computer system to another computer system, i.e. from one trading partner
to another trading partner without human intervention.

It is more than mere e-mail; for instance, organizations might replace bills of lading and
even cheques with appropriate EDI messages. It also refers specifically to a family of
standards.

In 1996, the National Institute of Standards and Technology defined electronic data
interchange as "the computer-to-computer interchange of strictly formatted messages that
represent documents other than monetary instruments. EDI implies a sequence of
messages between two parties, either of whom may serve as originator or recipient. The
formatted data representing the documents may be transmitted from originator to
recipient via telecommunications or physically transported on electronic storage media."
It distinguishes mere electronic communication or data exchange, specifying that "in
EDI, the usual processing of received messages is by computer only. Human intervention
in the processing of a received message is typically intended only for error conditions, for
quality review, and for special situations. For example, the transmission of binary or
textual data is not EDI as defined here unless the data are treated as one or more data
elements of an EDI message and are not normally intended for human interpretation as
part of online data processing." [1]

EDI can be formally defined as the transfer of structured data, by agreed message
standards, from one computer system to another without human intervention.

Purchase-to-pay, often abbreviated to P2P and also called req to check, refers to the business
processes that cover activities of requesting (requisitioning), purchasing, receiving, paying for
and accounting for goods and services.

Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller
in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the Internet. It is a form of electronic
commerce. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, webstore, online store, or
virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar
retailer or in a shopping centre. The process is called Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online
shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business-to-Business (B2B)
online shopping.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) is an American Internet (Consumer-to-consumer) company that

manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy
and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. Founded in 1995, eBay is one of the
notable success stories of the dot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with
operations localized in over thirty countries. [3][4] eBay expanded from its original "set-time"
auction format to include "Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPC, ISBN, or other kind
of SKU (via Half.com); online classified advertisements (via Kijiji or eBay Classifieds); online event
ticket trading (via StubHub); online money transfers (via PayPal[5]) and other services.

Electronic business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-business", or an internet

business, may be defined as the application of information and communication
technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business. Commerce constitutes the
exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and can be
seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Electronic commerce focuses on
the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with
individuals, groups and other businesses.[1]

The term "e-business" was coined by IBM's marketing and Internet teams in 1996.[2][3]

Electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data
processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and
partners, and to better satisfy the needs and expectations of their customers.

In practice, e-business is more than just e-commerce. While e-business refers to more
strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities,
e-commerce is a subset of an overall e-business strategy. E-commerce seeks to add
revenue streams using the World Wide Web or the Internet to build and enhance
relationships with clients and partners and to improve efficiency using the Empty Vessel
strategy