The purpose of this chapter is that an enquirer in the topics of e-commerce and e-business should get introspection into the protocol aspects of electronic business technology.
TopBackground
Trading has been part of the everyday life of the humanity since ancient times. Groups of people had surplus from one or more products, and at the same time, they needed something what they could not produce or make. Therefore they started to do barter. Initially this was only local character, but the extension of this activity increased rapidly. During this time the great trade routes have been established.
As trading developed, the method of payment was also improved and it is still evolving. The first step was the exchange of products, but this kind of trade has several problems. For example, it did not manage the problem of seasonal fruits. Therefore the commodity money has been introduced. This kind of paying method used an “intermediate” commodity as money. For example, these were cowry shells, koku (a unit of rice), or shekel. Coins became common stand as trading developed, and the standardized coinage was created. Many coins were made of special materials like gold or silver, and the value of the given coin was determined by its material. After this period, a commercial bank initiated the first paper money in England in 1694. Today, this process is controlled by the governments. The value of the banknotes depends on the economic performance of the issued country. Nowadays, besides banknotes, there are several alternative paying methods from the credit/debit card to the mobile payment technology. All of them are based on the modern “virtual” money that is registered by banks.
The Internet is a new opportunity for trading. Initially the sellers used only simple Web pages to show their product or to give some information about the company selling the product. In the next phase, medium and large companies built up their Web or other Internet based support solutions for their effective supply chain. These systems concentrated only on the following activities:
Finally, e-commerce and e-business was born. E-commerce manages only the outgoing processes like customers, suppliers, external partners, trade, marketing, taking orders, transport, customer service, procurement, and factory supply. E-business includes all activity of e-commerce and extends it with internal operations. These operations may be, for instance, production, inventory management, product development, risk management, finance, and human resource management. E-business can be classified by the role of the consumer and the provider. Its four common types are the following:
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B2B (Business to Business)
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B2C (Business to Consumer)
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B2A (Business to Administration)
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C2A (Consumer to Administration)