E-Business
Introduction to E-Business
Electronicbusiness (e-business) refers to the use
of the Web, Internet, intranets, extranets or some
combination thereof to conduct business. E-
business is similar to e-commerce, but it goes
beyond the simple buying and selling of products
and services online. E-business includes a much
wider range of businesses processes, such as
supply chain management, electronic order
processing and customer relationship
management.
Introduction to E-Business
E-business (electronic business) is the conduct of business
processes on the internet. These e-business processes
include buying and selling products, supplies and
services; servicing customers; processing payments;
managing production control; collaborating with
business partners; sharing information; running
automated employee services; recruiting; and more.
E-business or Online business means business
transactions that take place online with the help of the
internet. The term e-business came into existence in
the year 1996. E-business is an abbreviation for
electronic business. So the buyer and the seller don’t
meet personally.
5 Ways of doing e-business
There are many ways you can run an e-commerce business.
Some are easier to set up than others. They generally fall
under five categories:
Dropshipping - where you sell items on your website that
someone else manufactures and ships to your customer
Wholesaling and warehousing - where you buy products in
bulk and store them in a warehouse (usually for B2B market)
White-labelling - where you have a contract that allows you
to put your brand on the product as if you are the
manufacturer
Manufacturing - where you're paying to have the products
created for you and you fulfill the order yourself
Subscription-based - where you rely on a subscription
model that delivers your products to customers at regular,
scheduled intervals
Unique Features of e-business
1. Ubiquity
◦ Available just about everywhere, at all times.
◦ Market space is virtual (migration from marketplace to market
space).
◦ Transaction costs reduced (the costs of participating in a market).
◦ Example: being able to surf the web on your mobile device while
riding a bus or train.
2. Global reach
◦ Transactions cross cultural and national boundaries.
◦ The potential market size for e-commerce merchants is roughly
equal to the size of the world’s online population.
Unique Features of e-business
3. Universal standards
◦ Standards that are shared by all nations around the world.
◦ lower market entry costs—the cost merchants must pay just to
bring their goods to market.
◦ Reduce search costs—the effort required to find suitable
products.
◦ Price discovery becomes simpler, faster, and more accurate.
◦ Possible to easily find many of the suppliers, prices, and delivery
terms of a specific product anywhere in the world
4. Information richness
◦ Refers to the complexity and content of a message.
◦ Supports video, audio, and text messages.
◦ Are interactive and can adjust the message to individual users.
Unique Features of e-business
5. Interactivity
◦ technology that allows for two-way communication between
merchant and consumer and among consumers.
◦ Interactivity allows an online merchant to engage a consumer
in ways similar to a face-to-face experience.
◦ Comment features, community forums, and social networks
with social sharing functionality such as Like and Share
buttons all enable consumers to actively interact with
merchants and other users.
◦ Example: using a chat window to interact with technical
support at a merchant’s website.
6. Personalization/customization
◦ personalization: merchants can target their marketing
messages to specific individuals by adjusting the message to
a person’s name, interests, and past purchases.
◦ customization—changing the delivered product or service
based on a user’s preferences or prior behavior.
Types of e-Business
Business-to-Business (B2B)
Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
Business-to-Administration (B2A)
Types of e-Business
B2B: Companies doing business with each other
such as manufacturers selling to distributors and
wholesalers selling to retailers. Any company
whose customers are other businesses operate on
a B2B model.
B2C: Businesses selling to the general public
typically through catalogs utilizing shopping cart
software. It provides direct selling through online. If
you want to sell goods and services to customer so
that anybody can purchase any products directly
from supplier’s website.
Types of e-Business
C2B: A consumer posts his project with a set
budget online and within hours companies review
the consumer's requirements and bid on the
project. The consumer reviews the bids and selects
the company that will complete the project. It
empower consumers around the world by providing
the meeting ground and platform for such
transactions
C2C: It facilitates the online transaction of goods or
services between two people. Though there is no
visible intermediary involved but the parties cannot
carry out the transactions without the platform
which is provided by the online market maker such
as eBay.
Types of e-Business
B2A: Short for business-to-administration, also
known as e-government. B2A is the idea that
government agencies and businesses can use
central Web sites to conduct business and interact
with each other more efficiently than they usually
can off the Web. FindLaw is an example of a site
offering B2A services -- a single place to locate
court documents, tax forms and filings for many
different local, state and federal government
organizations.
Advantages of e-Business
Faster buying/selling procedure, as well as easy to
find products.
Buying/selling 24/7.
Low operational costs
Easy to start and manage a business.
No need of physical company set-ups.
Customers can easily select products from different
providers without moving around physically.
Disadvantages of e-Business
There is no guarantee of product quality.
There are many hackers who look for opportunities,
and thus an ecommerce site, service, payment
gateways, all are always prone to attack.
Not everyone is connected to internet.
Server down/Site crash – Need Backup plan
Losses of return goods
