I. eCommerce
Commonly known as eCommerce, Electronic Commerce is one of the world’s largest, and fastest growing economic sectors. Simply defined, eCommerce is “the process of buying, selling, or exchanging products, services, or information via computer networks.” (Turban) The products and services offered through the World Wide Web are vast and range from the occasional purchase of a NBA basketball game ticket to an everyday item like groceries. eCommerce is one the most important reasons the internet has emerged to be as successful as it is today.
eCommerce was first developed in the 1970s and it mainly consisted of EFT (electronic funds transfer) allowing funds to be routed electronically from one organization to another, EDI (electronic data interchange) allowing documents to be transferred, and IOS (interorganizational system) an automated flow of information between organizations. Since the beginning of eCommerce, it has greatly expanded. EDI today is as simple as sending an email and EFT is present in every online bank. (Janice)
The three largest eCommerce models today are B2C (business to consumer), C2C (consumer to consumer), and B2B (business to business), of which B2B is the largest. Other eCommerce models include G2C (government to constituent), C2G (constituent to government), G2B (government to business), and B2G (business to government). (Gauvin)