The document provides an overview of e-commerce, defining it as the buying and selling of goods and services electronically via the internet, and traces its origins from early developments in the 1960s to its current prevalence. It differentiates between e-commerce and e-business, highlighting that e-commerce is a subset focused on transactions while e-business encompasses a broader range of electronic processes. The document also discusses unique features of e-commerce, comparisons with traditional commerce, and its advantages and disadvantages.

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Chapter One
An Overview to E-commerce

2.  Introduction of E-commerce
 Recently most commercial transactions still take place through
conventional channels, rising numbers of consumers and
businesses are using the Internet for electronic commerce.
 E-commerce is the part of e-business that deals with the buying
and selling of goods and services electronically using the Internet,
networks, and other digital technologies.
 Simply e-commerce is the buying and selling of products and
services by businesses or consumers over the WWW.

3.  Origin of E-commerce
Was introduced 40 years ago and, to this day, continues to grow with new
technologies, innovations, thousands of bus’s entering the online market.
In 1960-1982 electric commerce was start to develop by introduce EDI. EDI
replaced traditional mailing and faxing of documents with a digital
transfer of data from one computer to another.
1982-1990 It was apparent from the beginning that B2B online shopping but
B2C would not be successful until the later widespread use of PC’s and
the WWW, also known as, the Internet.
90’s to Present the researchers published a proposal to build a “Hypertext
project” called, “Worldwide Web.” finally Created the first web server
and wrote the first web browser. developing URL, HTML, HTTP.

4. Definition of E-commerce
 E-commerce the buying and selling of products and services by
businesses and consumers through an electronic medium, without
using any paper documents by using internet.
 E-commerce is not solely restricted to the actual buying and selling
of products, but also includes pre-sale and post-sale activities across
the supply chain.
 E-commerce refers to paperless exchange of business information
using EDI, e-mail, Electronic Bulletin Boards, Electronic Fund
Transfer (EFT) and Other Network-based technologies.
Examples of E-Commerce
 An individual purchases a book on the Internet.
 A government employee reserves a hotel room over the Internet.
 An individual withdraws funds from an automatic teller machine.
 Accepting credit cards for commercial online sales.

5. E-business vs. E-commerce
E-commerce is more specific than e-business.
E-business: includes all electronic–based information exchanges
within or between companies and customers.
E-business is similar to e-commerce, but E-commerce simple buying
and selling of products and services by online. E-business includes a
much wider range of businesses processes, such as SCM, electronic
order processing and customer relationship management. Therefore,
E-business processes, can help companies to operate more effectively
and efficiently.
E-business involves the use electronic platforms to conduct a
company’s business.

6. Internet help companies carry on their business faster, more
accurately and over a range of time and space. They have created
intranets to help employees communicate with each other and
access information found in the company’s computers. They have
set up extranets with major suppliers and distributers to assist
information exchange, orders, transactions and payments.
Shortly
oE- Business is broader in scope and e-commerce is just aspect or a
subset of it.
oE-commerce only covers business transactions such as buying and
selling of goods and services over the internet.
oE-commerce essentially involves monetary trade while in e-
business, money transaction is not necessary.

7. Unique features of Electronic Commerce
Ubiquity - it is available just about everywhere, at all times.
Global Reach - The potential market size is roughly equal to the size of
the online population of the world.
Universal standards - Internet are shared by all of the nations in the
world. For instance, television and radio standards differ around the world.
Richness - Users can access and utilize text messages and visual and
audio components to send and receive information.
Interactivity-E-commerce technologies allow two-way communication
between the merchant and the consumer.
Personalization - In E-commerce technologies merchants can target
their marketing messages to specific individuals by adjusting the
message to a person’s name, interests, and past purchases.
Information density - The use of e-Commerce reduces the cost to
store, process and communicate information or reduce information
collection, storage, processing, and communication costs.

8. Comparison of traditional commerce and E-commerce
Traditional Commerce is a part of business, which encompasses all
activities that facilitate exchange.
Two kinds of activities are included in commerce, i.e. trade refers to
the buying and selling of goods and services for cash or kind and
auxiliaries, implies all those activities like banking, insurance,
transportation, advertisement, packaging, and so on.
Cost effective - E-commerce is very cost effective when compared
to traditional commerce.
Time saving - in E-commerce a product order and the transaction
can be completed in few minutes through internet.
Convenience - E-commerce provides better connectivity for its
prospective and potential customers virtually from anywhere, anytime
through internet.
Geographical accessibility - In e-commerce it is easy to expand the
size of the market from regional to international level.

9. Introduction of new products - e-commerce, it is easy to introduce a
product on website and get the immediate feedback of the customers.
Profit - E-commerce helps to increase the sales of the organization and
greater profits by increasing sales, cutting cost.
Physical inspection - E-commerce does not allow physical inspection
of goods, whereas in traditional commerce, it is possible to inspect.
Time accessibility - Business is open only for limited time in traditional
commerce.
Product suitability - E-commerce is not suitable for perishable goods
and high valuable items such as jewelry and antiques.
Customer interaction - interaction between business and consumer is a
“face-to-face” in traditional but it is “screen-to-face” in e-commerce.
Process - there is an automated processing of business transactions in
e-commerce but manual transactions in traditional commerce.
Fraud - Lot of cyber frauds take place in electronic commerce
transactions. Lack of physical presence in markets and unclear legal
issues frauds to take place in traditional commerce.

10. Advantages and disadvantage of E-commerce
Advantages of E-commerce
Being able to conduct business 24 x 7 x 365
Access the global market place
Speed
Market space
Opportunity to reduce costs
Efficient applications development environment
Disadvantage of E-commerce
Time for delivery of physical products
Physical product, supplier & delivery uncertainty
Perishable goods
Returning goods
Privacy, security, payment, identity, and contract
Size and number of transactions

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