Electronic Retailing and Commerce

A certain amount of the business performed on the Internet is purely of the digital form. This means that not only the means of buying and selling the product are electronic, but the product is intangible or is in itself purely electronic. The prime examples of this are access to value added websites and the transfer of software whether purchased or gratis.

However, most e-commerce involves the transfer of tangible items fro one point to another. Organizations that indulge in this activity are on-line retailers and are sometimes referred to as e-tailers whilst the activity itself is dubbed e-tail.

There are two kinds of electronic commerce. Firstly there is that which is conducted between businesses who have a mutual interest such as stock transfer or commodity interchange and sometimes this is amongst businesses that are pre-qualified in some way. This would be viewed as a kind of private electronic market These are called B2B, business to business activities..

The second kind of e-commerce is that conducted between businesses and customers. These are referred to as B2C businesses. The most famous of these is without doubt Amazon.com.

On-line shoppers have a direct link to the shop’s computer. Private virtual connections (PVC’s) are available for this but the vast majority is enabled by the Internet.

Most of the e-business conducted in this manner is completely interactive and between the shop and the customer. Organizations like eBay may provide some form of intermediary service such as auction facilities, but the bulk of this business is shopper to shop.