Guidelines to understand the basics of E-commerce

Explaining how e commerce works is rather simple. E commerce is nothing but the exchange of goods and / or services electronically. When you buy something from eBay, Amazon.com or any online store, you’ve participated in e commerce. If you are among those who download music from sites like Napster or iTunes, then you too have performed e commerce. An overview of the different types of e commerce right at the beginning will help you understand it better. B2B: The oldest form of e commerce is B2B or business-to-business e commerce. Back in the 1960s, banks and other businesses began sharing and transferring files and information electronically. Not all businesses were successful in transferring with each other in the absence of a single standard for conducting this business. Thus the scope of sharing files and information was limited. B2B e commerce got a boost in the 80s when a reliable standard was set up which enabled all to use the same method and hence exchange files much more easily. C2C: Consumer-to-consumer or C2C has gained popularity with the masses and is widely used by many today. If you see an ad posting on an electronic board or an online auction and you purchase something online by responding to it then you have participated in consumer to consumer e commerce, the only condition being that you purchase from a person rather than a business. Online auctions are the most popular manifestation of consumer-to-consumer e commerce, eBay, the gigantic site which allows users to put up their goods and sell them to the highest bidder is a well known example of the same. P2P: The use of Napster for sharing files free of cost gave rise to P2P or peer-to-peer e commerce. Several instances of similar websites and file-sharing programs and systems can be found online. B2C: It is impossible to explain the working of e commerce without mentioning the huge amount of e commerce that takes places from business-to-consumer. E commerce is when anyone purchases anything at an online store or website, be it a download of an electronic form or an item that is shipped to the buyer. It is necessary to keep the following things in mind to explain how e commerce works. E commerce comprises of one or more of the following, all of which are transactions that are conducted online: Information exchange or Money transfers or Goods/Services exchange. Simple concepts can be used to explain how e commerce works in your favor. If you wish to purchase a book, for example, it is not too hard to locate numerous online bookstores and use them to compare its prices to determine the lowest one. While narrowing down to the store which will ship the book to you at the earliest and charge you the lowest cost, it is essential that you compare the shipping costs and shipping times of different providers. All of this can be achieved without having to stand in line, fight crowds, or spend money for transportation or gas. Perceiving the advantages of e commerce is simple, when you take into account the fact that you can comparison shop so easily, for small and large items. There is no doubt that we can explain the benefits of e commerce, but you will see its advantages yourself once you have actually purchased an item this way. Have fun, Jayneel