Overview of E-Business & E-Commerce

Pure vs. Partial EC

o   The product can be physical or digital.

o   The process can be physical or digital.

o   The delivery agent can be physical or digital.

Brick-and-mortar organizations are purely physical organizations.

Virtual organizations are companies that are engaged only in EC. (Also called pure play)

Click-and-mortar organizations are those that conduct some e-commerce activities, yet their business is primarily done in the physical world. i.e. partial EC.

Types of E-Commerce:

·         Business-to-consumer (B2C): the sellers are organizations and the buyers are individuals.

·         Business-to-business (B2B): both the sellers and buyers are business organizations. B2B represents the vast majority of e-commerce.

·         Consumer-to-consumer (C2C): an individual sells products or services to other individuals.

·         Business-to-employee (B2E): An organization uses e-commerce internally to provide information and services to its employees. Companies allow employees to manage their benefits, take training classes electronically as well as buy discounted insurance, travel packages, and event tickets.

·         E-Government: the use of Internet Technology in general and e-commerce in particular to deliver information about public services to citizens (called Government-to-citizen [G2C EC]), business partners and suppliers (called government-to-business [G2B EC]),

·         Mobile Commerce (m-commerce) refers to e-commerce that is conducted in a wireless environment. For example, using a cell phone to shop over the Internet.

Electronic Payments

  Electronic payment systems enable you to pay for goods and services electronically.

·         Electronic checks (e-checks) are similar to paper checks and are used mostly in B2B.

·         Electronic credit cards allow customers to charge online payments to their credit card account.

·         Purchasing cards are the B2B equivalent of electronic credit cards and are typically used for unplanned B2B purchases.

·         Electronic cash

o    Stored-value money cards allow you to store a fixed amount of prepaid money and then spend it as necessary.

o    Smart cards contain a chip called a microprocessor that can store a considerable amount of information and are multipurpose – can be used as a debit card, credit card or a stored-value money card.

o     Person-to-person payments are a form of e-cash that enables two individuals or an individual and a business to transfer funds without using a credit card.

Ethical and Legal Issues in E-Business

·         Fraud on the Internet i.e. stocks, investments, business opportunities, auctions.

·         Domain Names problems with competition.

·         Domain Tasting is a practice of registrants using the five-day "grace period" at the beginning of a domain registration to profit from pay-per-click advertising.

·         Cybersquatting refers to the practice of registering domain names solely for the purpose of selling them later at a higher price.

·         Taxes and other Fees when and where (and in some cases whether) electronic sellers should pay business license taxes, franchise fees, gross-receipts taxes, excise taxes, …etc.

·         Copyright protecting intellectual property in e-commerce and enforcing copyright laws is extremely difficult.