Businesses doing business with each other via the Internet. Or the interactions between firms that take place electronically via digital media.
Published in Chapter:
E-Commerce Models and Consumer Concerns
Richard Peterson (Montclair State University, USA)
Copyright: © 2008
|Pages: 6
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-881-9.ch043
Abstract
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) refers generally to all forms of buying, selling, transforing, exchanging products, services, or information over computer networks (Carter, 2002). Business activities such as communication, business transactions, and data transfer, including both organizations and individual, are conducted online. The “electronic” or “e” in e-commerce or e-business refers to the technology/systems; the “commerce” refers to the traditional business models. Things like funds transfer, order booking, data interchange, automated inventory management, and online marketing all come under the purview of e-commerce (Erber, Klaus, & Voigt, 2001). For instance, people and organizations can shop around the Web to find the products, prices, and services that suit them best and order and pay for items without a physical presence of either the shopper or the merchandise.