The introduction: what is e-commerce?

Basically, e-commerce (electronic commerce) is the online transaction of business,where it features a link between computer systems of the vendor, host and buyer or in other words it also can be refer as the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet.

A more complete definition is: E-commerce is the use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals.(Emmanuel Lallana, Rudy Quimbo, Zorayda RuthAndam, ePrimer: An Introduction to eCommerce (Philippines: DAI-AGILE, 2000), 2.)

There are different types of e0commerce. The major types of e-commerce are business-to-business (B2B); business-to-consumer (B2C); and consumer-to-consumer (C2C).

B2B e-commerce is defined as e-commerce between the companies. this type of e-commerce deals with relationships between and among businesses. Most B2B applications are in the areas of supplier management (especially purchase order processing), inventory management (managing order-ship-bill cycles), distribution management (especially in the transmission of shipping documents), channel management (information dissemination on changes in operational conditions), and payment management (electronic payment systems or EPS).(Kalakota and Whinston, 18-19)

B2C e-commerce is commerce between companies and consumers. For example purchasing goods such as consumer products or information goods like software. These are the common applications of B2C commerce which pertains to the management of personal investments and finances with the use of online banking tools.

Another type of e-commerce is C2C e-commerce (consumer to consumer). It is a kind of commerce between private individuals or consumers. eBay is a most popular example of C2C e-commerce. it allows online bidding on items being sold in the web.