What is e-commerce? What are its types?

 

What is e-commerce? What are its types?

Electronic commerce or e-commerce is a type of industry where the buying and selling of products or services is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.

 

1. B2B [Business to Business]: defined as e-commerce between companies dealing with relationships between and among businesses. E.g. online tender notification and bidding.

2. B2C [Business to Consumer]: involves customers gathering information; purchasing physical goods or information goods or goods of electronic material or digitized content such as software or e-books and receiving products over an electronic network. E.g. Flipkart.com

3. B2G [Business to Government]: defined as commerce between the companies and public sector. It refers to the use of internet for licensing procedures and other government-related operations. E.g. online passport authorization.

4. C2C [Consumer to Consumer]: is commerce between private individuals or consumers. E.g. olx.com

5. C2B [Consumer to Business]: involves reverse auctions, which empower the consumer to drive transactions. E.g. drawing money from ATM.

6. M-Commerce: or mobile commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless technology i.e. handheld devices such as cellular telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).