Question NO 1.

Define E-Commerce and its types.?

E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting
of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet. These business transactions occur
either as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer or consumer-
to-business. The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is
also sometimes used in reference to the transactional processes that make up online retail shopping.
In the last decade, widespread use of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay has contributed
to substantial growth in online retail. In 2007, e-commerce accounted for 5.1% of total retail sales; in
2019, e-commerce made up 16.0%.
How does e-commerce work?
E-commerce is powered by the internet, where customers can access an online store to browse
through, and place orders for products or services via their own devices.
As the order is placed, the customer's web browser will communicate back and forth with
the server hosting the online store website. Data pertaining to the order will then be relayed to
a central computer known as the order manager -- then forwarded to databases that manage
inventory levels, a merchant system that manages payment information (using applications
such as PayPal), and a bank computer -- before circling back to the order manager. This is to
make sure that store inventory and customer funds are sufficient for the order to be processed.
After the order is validated, the order manager will notify the store's web server, which will
then display a message notifying the customer that their order has been successfully processed.
The order manager will then send order data to the warehouse or fulfillment department, in
order for the product or service to be successfully dispatched to the customer. At this point
tangible and/or digital products may be shipped to a customer, or access to a service may be
granted.
Platforms that host e-commerce transactions may include online marketplaces that sellers
simply sign up for, such as Amazon.com; software as a service (SaaS) tools that allow customers
to 'rent' online store infrastructures; or open source tools for companies to use in-house
development to manage.
Types of e-commerce
Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce refers to the electronic exchange of products, services or
information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers. Examples include
online directories and product and supply exchange websites that allow businesses to search for
products, services and information and to initiate transactions through e-procurement interfaces.
In 2017, Forrester Research predicted that the B2B e-commerce market will top $1.1 trillion in the U.S.
by 2021, accounting for 13% of all B2B sales in the nation.
Business-to-consumer (B2C) is the retail part of e-commerce on the internet. It is when businesses
sell products, services or information directly to consumers. The term was popular during the dot-com
boom of the late 1990s, when online retailers and sellers of goods were a novelty.
Today, there are innumerable virtual stores and malls on the internet selling all types of consumer
goods. The most recognized example of these sites is Amazon, which dominates the B2C market.
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) is a type of e-commerce in which consumers trade products, services and
information with each other online. These transactions are generally conducted through a third party
that provides an online platform on which the transactions are carried out.
Online auctions and classified advertisements are two examples of C2C platforms, with eBay and
Craigslist being two of the most popular of these platforms. Because eBay is a business, this form of e-
commerce could also be called C2B2C -- consumer-to-business-to-consumer.
Consumer-to-business (C2B) is a type of e-commerce in which consumers make their products and
services available online for companies to bid on and purchase. This is the opposite of the traditional
commerce model of B2C.
A popular example of a C2B platform is a market that sells royalty-free photographs, images, media and
design elements, such as iStock. Another example would be a job board.
Business-to-administration (B2A) refers to transactions conducted online between companies and
public administration or government bodies. Many branches of government are dependent on e-
services or products in one way or another, especially when it comes to legal documents, registers,
social security, fiscals and employment. Businesses can supply these electronically. B2A services have
grown considerably in recent years as investments have been made in e-government capabilities.
Consumer-to-administration (C2A) refers to transactions conducted online between individual
consumers and public administration or government bodies. The government rarely buys products or
services from citizens, but individuals frequently use electronic means in the following areas:
 Education. Disseminating information, distance learning/online lectures, etc.
 Social security. Distributing information, making payments, etc.
 Taxes. filing tax returns, making payments, etc.
 Health. Making appointments, providing information about illnesses, making health services
payments, etc.
Mobile e-commerce (M-commerce) is a type of e-commerce on the rise that features online sales
transactions made using mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. M-commerce includes mobile
shopping, mobile banking and mobile payments. Mobile chatbots also provide e-commerce
opportunities to businesses, allowing consumers to complete transactions with companies via voice or
text conversations.
Advantages and disadvantages of e-commerce
Benefits of e-commerce include its around-the-clock availability, the speed of access, the wide
availability of goods and services for the consumer, easy accessibility and international reach.
 Availability. Aside from outages or scheduled maintenance, e-commerce sites are
available 24x7, allowing visitors to browse and shop at any time. Brick-and-mortar businesses
tend to open for a fixed number of hours and may even close entirely on certain days.
 Speed of access. While shoppers in a physical store can be slowed by crowds, e-commerce
sites run quickly, which is determined by compute and bandwidth considerations on both
consumer device and e-commerce site. Product pages and shopping cart pages load in a few
seconds or less. An e-commerce transaction can comprise a few clicks and take less than five
minutes.
 Wide availability. Amazon's first slogan was "Earth's Biggest Bookstore." They could make this
claim because they were an e-commerce site and not a physical store that had to stock each
book on its shelves. E-commerce enables brands to make a wide array of products available,
 which are then shipped from a warehouse after a purchase is made. Customers will likely have
more success finding what they want.
 Easy accessibility. Customers shopping a physical store may have a hard time determining
which aisle a particular product is in. In e-commerce, visitors can browse product category pages
and use the site search feature the find the product immediately.
 International reach. Brick-and-mortar businesses sell to customers who physically visit their
stores. With e-commerce, businesses can sell to any customer who can access the web. E-
commerce has the potential to extend a business' customer base
 Lower cost. pure play e-commerce businesses avoid the cost associated with physical stores,
such as rent, inventory and cashiers, although they may incur shipping and warehouse costs.
 Personalization and product recommendations . E-commerce sites can track visitors'
browse, search and purchase history. They can use this data to present useful and personalized
product recommendations, and obtain valuable insights about target markets. Examples include
the sections of Amazon product pages labeled "Frequently bought together" and "Customers
who viewed this item also viewed."
The perceived disadvantages of e-commerce include sometimes limited customer service, consumers
not being able to see or touch a product prior to purchase and the wait time for product shipping.
 Limited customer service. If a customer has a question or issue in a physical store, he or she
can see a clerk, cashier or store manager for help. In an e-commerce store, customer service
may be limited: The site may only provide support during certain hours of the day, or a call to a
customer service phone number may keep the customer on hold.
 Not being able to touch or see. While images on a webpage can provide a good sense about
a product, it's different from experiencing it "directly," such as playing music on speakers,
assessing the picture quality of a television or trying on a shirt or dress. E-commerce can lead
consumers to receive products that differ from their expectations, which leads to returns. In
some scenarios, the customer bears the burden for the cost of shipping the returned item to the
retailer.
 Wait time. If a customer sees an item that he or she likes in a store, the customer pays for it
and then goes home with it. With e-commerce, there is a wait time for the product to be
shipped to the customer's address. Although shipping windows are decreasing as next day
delivery is now quite common, it's not instantaneous.
 Security. Skilled hackers can create authentic-looking websites that claim to sell well-known
products. Instead, the site sends customers forfeit or imitation versions of those products -- or,
simply collects customers' credit card information. Legitimate e-commerce sites also carry risk,
especially when customers store their credit card information with the retailer to make future
purchases easier. If the retailer's site is hacked, hackers may come into the possession of
customers' credit card information.

Question No:2

What Is Brick and Mortar? 

Brick and mortar retailers are traditional businesses physically located in a building. They
offer services and products on-site and interact with customers face-to-face. Grocery stores,
pharmacies, banks, and movie theaters are all brick and mortar retailers. 
Anytime you shop at a mall, plaza, or stand-alone building, you’re in a brick and mortar
business. At one time, retailers in real-life buildings dominated the business landscape. But the
internet has created a permanent shift in what’s possible for companies. 
The growth of technology hasn’t drowned out brick and mortar retailers, yet. With an
estimated 442,597 physical business locations active in the U.S. in 2019, it’s still a popular
business model for startups and large corporations alike. 
Let’s explore the advantages and disadvantages of brick and mortar retailers to help you
determine whether this is the type of business is best-suited for you. 
Advantages of Brick and Mortar Businesses
 Face-to-face interactions: You have the opportunity to create a personal connection
with customers by interacting with them in-person rather than through a screen. 
 Trustworthiness: Customers automatically associate brick and mortar retailers with
greater legitimacy, trust, and professionalism. 
 Customer satisfaction: Shoppers feel more confident when they’re able to see and test a
product or speak with a representative about a service in-person.
Disadvantages of Brick and Mortar Businesses
 High initial investment costs: There are significant up-front costs involved in getting a
brick and mortar business up and running.
 Slow startup: It can take years of planning, finding investors, applying for loans, scouting
the right spot, filling out paperwork, and waiting to start a brick and mortar business. 

Question No.3
What Are eCommerce Business Models? 
eCommerce sites have received a disproportionate amount of attention since the advent of
online shopping — for a good reason. The online business model comes with a host of benefits
for business owners. 
eCommerce models are especially popular for small businesses due to lower start-up costs.  
While traditional brick and mortar retailers are in the real world, eCommerce services exist in
the digital world of servers, computer screens, and hard drives. 
But, you don’t have to be a computer whiz to get started with an online store. There are
numerous services that can make building an online business easier than you may have
imagined. 
It may seem like eCommerce sites are all pros and no cons, but that’s not the case.
Advantages of eCommerce Businesses
 Low startup costs: You don’t have to spend much money to get an eCommerce website
up and running. 
 Scalability: eCommerce businesses are easy to scale up and down, depending on your
business’s performance fluctuations. 
  Enhanced tracking capabilities: When you operate your business entirely online, it’s
easier to find the right tools to help you track important metrics such as customer
retention, conversion rates, and bounce rates. 
 Quick startup: For the most basic eCommerce business, you can learn, plan, and launch
in as little as one day. 
Disadvantages of eCommerce Businesses
 High competition: The internet is a crowded marketplace. It will take some time for your
brand to break through and pick up steam. 
 Privacy concerns: Many customers feel insecure about giving personal information to
unfamiliar websites, including mailing addresses and credit card numbers. 
Question No:4
What Are Service-Oriented Companies? 
Service-oriented companies are businesses that provide services to clients. This is in contrast to
product-oriented companies that focus on offering physical goods to customers. 
Both brick and mortar retailers and eCommerce business models can be service-oriented. It
boils down to what you’re offering consumers. There are unique upsides to focusing on services
instead of actual products — there are also downsides.
Advantages of Service-Oriented Companies
 No inventory: There’s no up-front investment for physical products, and you don’t have
to maintain and track inventory. 
 Scalability: Service-oriented businesses have more flexibility when it comes to growing
over time. You can expand operations to meet demand, and change your pricing
structure as needed. 
 Easier fulfillment: It’s much easier to deliver a service than a product to a customer. You
don’t have to work around delivery times, international suppliers, and other product-
related obstacles. 
Disadvantages of Service-Oriented Companies
 Difficulty standing out: Since anyone can get started in this space quite easily, it takes
some effort to set yourself apart from the competition. 
 More complicated hiring: Depending on the service, this business model might require
you to hire highly-specialized employees, who are harder to come by. 

Question No:5
Why Brick and Mortar Retailers Are Moving Online ?
You’ve probably noticed that some businesses are both brick and mortar and online. Walmart
has stores all over the U.S., but they also have a way to order most of their products online.
Many more brick and mortar retailers are starting to add virtual storefronts.
Why operate with two different business models?
The popularity of the internet means that businesses can grow online — without spending a lot
of money. With 300 million online shoppers expected by 2023, it’s easy to understand this
motivation.
As of 2017, brick and mortar retailers still beat out eCommerce business models in total sales
— $3 trillion compared to $450 billion. 
But the trends tell a different story. 
While brick and mortar sales saw a 2% increase from 2016 to 2017, eCommerce sales
skyrocketed by 16%. These changes point toward a not-so-far-away future where online
shopping is at least as popular as in-person shopping (if not more). Even now, 64% of
customers prefer the convenience of shopping online. 
Affordability and simplicity are other key motivations for businesses to make the transition to
virtual storefronts. Between rent, utilities, down payments, permits, licenses, and remodeling,
brick and mortar retailers demand more investment. 
On the other hand, eCommerce businesses only require a domain name, hosting, and a theme
to get started — that’s potentially thousands of dollars in savings. 
There are some critical differences between brick and mortar retailers, eCommerce business
models, and service-oriented companies. Each type of business comes with advantages and
disadvantages which make the decision about how your company operates a personal choice. 
You have to understand your business needs and goals to determine which business model
suits you best. You may even choose a combination of each. Join businesses of all kinds in
embracing the power, flexibility, and reach of the internet-based models. 

Question No 5

What is a packet?
In networking, a packet is a small segment of a larger message. Data sent over computer
networks*, such as the Internet, is divided into packets. These packets are then recombined by
the computer or device that receives them.
Suppose Alice is writing a letter to Bob, but Bob's mail slot is only wide enough to accept
envelopes the size of a small index card. Instead of writing her letter on normal paper and then
trying to stuff it through the mail slot, Alice divides her letter into much shorter sections, each a
few words long, and writes these sections out on index cards. She delivers the group of cards to
Bob, who puts them in order to read the whole message.
This is similar to how packets work on the Internet. Suppose a user needs to load an image. The
image file does not go from a web server to the user's computer in one piece. Instead, it is
broken down into packets of data, sent over the wires, cables, and radio waves of the Internet,
and then reassembled by the user's computer into the original photo.
*A network is a group of two or more connected computers. The Internet is a network of
networks — multiple networks around the world that are all interconnected with each other.

Why use packets?

Theoretically, it could be possible to send files and data over the Internet without chopping
them down into small packets of information. One computer could send data to another
computer in the form of a long unbroken line of bits (small units of information, communicated
as pulses of electricity that computers can interpret).
However, such an approach quickly becomes impractical when more than two computers are
involved. While the long line of bits passed over the wires between the two computers, no third
computer could use those same wires to send information — it would have to wait its turn.
In contrast to this approach, the Internet is a "packet switching" network. Packet switching
refers to the ability of networking equipment to process packets independently from each other.
It also means that packets can take different network paths to the same destination, so long as
they all arrive at the destination. (In certain protocols, packets do need to arrive at their final
destinations in the correct order, even if each packet took a different route to get there.)
Because of packet switching, packets from multiple computers can travel over the same wires in
basically any order. This enables multiple connections to take place over the same networking
equipment at the same time. As a result, billions of devices can exchange data on the Internet
at the same time, instead of just a handful.

What is a packet header?

A packet header is a "label" of sorts, which provides information about the packet’s contents,
origin, and destination.
When Alice sends her series of index cards to Bob, the words on those cards alone will not give
Bob enough context to read the letter correctly. Alice needs to indicate the order that the index
cards go in so that Bob does not read them out of order. She also should indicate that each one
is from her, in case Bob receives messages from other people while she is delivering hers. So
Alice adds this information to the top of each index card, above the actual words of her
message. On the first card she writes "Letter from Alice, 1 of 20," on the second she writes
"Letter from Alice, 2 of 20," and so on.
Alice has created a miniature header for her cards so that Bob does not lose them or mix them
up. Similarly, all network packets include a header so that the device that receives them knows
where the packets come from, what they are for, and how to process them.
Packets consist of two portions: the header and the payload. The header contains information
about the packet, such as its origin and destination IP addresses (an IP address is like a
computer's mailing address). The payload is the actual data. Referring back to the photo
example, the thousands of packets that make up the image each have a payload, and the
payload carries a little piece of the image.