Ecommerce - Buying and selling products

Ecommerce is the short form of electronic commerce, and it means the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems like the Internet, or even other computer networks. Today, internet usage has become very widespread; therefore it is no surprise that there has been a huge increase in the amount of trade that is conducted electronically. Ecommerce is conduced like this – it draws on innovations in supply chain management, electronic funds transfer, online transaction processing, internet marketing, and electronic data interchange, automated data collection systems, and inventory management systems. In the transaction’s lifecycle, the World Wide Web is typically used by ecommerce, though other technologies like email may also be used.

Much of electronic commerce is done totally electronically for virtual items like access to premium content on a website, but there may also be transportation of physical items in a lot of electronic commerce. Online retailers are also referred to sometimes as e-tailers, and online retail may also be referred to as e-tail. You would be surprised to know that almost all the big retailers out there have an ecommerce presence on the World Wide Web.

Do you know what B2B is? Well, it refers to ecommerce that is conducted between business to business. It is open to all the interested parties (like commodity exchange), or it may be limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (like private electronic market). There is also B2C, which is ecommerce that is conducted between businesses and consumers – for instance, Amazon.com conducts this kind of ecommerce. Basically, ecommerce is the sales aspect of e-business; it means the exchange of data to bring about the payment and financing of the business transactions.

The concept of ecommerce has changed, over the last few years. Originally, it means the facilitation of commercial transactions over an electronic medium, using technology like Electronic Data Exchange, and Electronic Funds Transfer. These were introduced in the 1970’s, and they allowed business to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoiced electronically. In the 1980’s, the use of credit cards, telephone banking, and automated teller machines increased, and then these were also accepted as ecommerce. The airline reservation system which was typified by Sabre (USA) and Travicom (UK) also was ecommerce.

Online shopping is today an essential part of ecommerce, and it was invented by Michael Aldrich in 1979, in the UK. In 1981, the first B2B was recorded in the world, of Thomson Holidays, and in 1984, the first recorded B2C happened – in Gateshead SJS/Tesco. The first online shopper of the world (recorded) was Jane Snowball of Gateshead, England. Online shopping came to be extensively used in the 1980’s, in the UK, by auto manufacturers like General Motors, Ford, and Nissan. All of them used the Aldrich systems, and the systems used the switched public telephone network in dial-up and leased line modes. No broadband capability was there.