Today we are moving into an era of “intangible” business processes, where business communication and transactions can be conducted anywhere, anytime, and with a simple click of a mouse. With the speedy amplification and expansion of technology, information systems have become a normal component of our everyday life. The phenomenal growth of the internet has led to the emergence of a great number of new technologies and one of the most important ones is the ability to conduct business over the internet. E-commerce is currently changing the way business is conducted by assisting business progressions and transactions with very few organizations debating whether or not to participate in it. E-commerce software is the engine behind the scenes of an online store, making it possible to easily manage inventory, add or remove products, calculate taxes, and everything else required to manage a website and fulfill orders.
Top1. E- Commerce Overview
The internet has transpired as the foremost worldwide dissemination channel for goods, services, managerial and professional jobs thereby intensely altering economics, industry structure, products, services, consumer behavior, jobs, and markets. The phenomenal growth of the internet has led to the emergence of a great number of new technologies and one of the most important ones is the ability to conduct business over the internet. Businesses have progressively clinched Electronic Commerce or E-Commerce to revolutionize their procedures nowadays. E-Commerce can be said to be a policy of contemporary business that basically addresses the requirements of business associations, vendors and customers to lessen cost and improve the quality of goods and services while increasing the speed of delivery by procuring and vending goods and services, or transmitting funds or data, over an electronic network, predominantly the internet. The E-Commerce can be significantly explained using several perspectives such as Communication, Service, Business process and Commercial as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Different perspective of e-commerce
Good communication plays a vital role in business not just for the daily basis functioning of the company, but also influences the sales and turnover in an organization. Communication could be in terms of delivery of goods, payment over networks or other electronic medium that is involved in E-Commerce. Service on the other hand addresses to cater the need of organization, government sectors as well as consumers to improve the quality of different types of services to be rendered. Commercial (Advertising) for buying and selling products using online services available such as email campaigns, ads, affiliate programs, pay-per-click ads etc. Business process enhances E-Commerce as a means to totally substitute physical business and perform business electronically. However, E-Commerce is not just about buying and selling products but it is a mechanism of electronically communicating, determining information and collaborating that has a significant impact on business, organization, profession and customer.
E-Commerce deals with several ways of exchanging business information viz. Electronic Document Interchange, Electronic Publishing, Electronic Messaging and other Network- based technologies as depicted in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Several ways of business information exchange in E-Commerce
Electronic Data Interchange or EDI is an electronic way of transferring business documents from one computer system to another in an organization internally or externally without the human intervention as internet as a medium for data exchange. EDI permits the exchange internally among the various departments of an organization or externally with suppliers, customers or any subsidiaries possibly located remotely in different countries. The most common business documents transferred using EDI are Invoices, Purchase orders, Shipping requests, Acknowledgement, Business correspondence letters, Financial information letters and many more. Electronic Funds Transfer or EFT refereed as paperless monetary transactions is a mechanism of transferring money from one bank account directly to another through an electronic terminal using Automated Teller Machine (ATM) or computer system for both credit transfers, such as payroll payments, and for debit transfers, such as mortgage payments. E-Commerce employs other ways to exchange business information’s: Electronic messaging either using Email or Fax and Electronic Publishing by marketing, advertising, sales and customer support.