What is an E-Business?
The abbreviation e-business stands for the English denomination “electronic business”. The concept e-business can be defined in many different ways. In the 1990s, the concept emerged through the company IBM.
E-business employs digital information technologies, in order to simplify business processes. The core issue in this process is the information, communication and transaction between networks (for example companies). This article concerns the interpretation of the electronic commerce.
Electronic commerce
The electronic commerce concerns the purchase or sale of products and services, for example on the online retail. Here, you can consider two different relations for a seller. Firstly, there is the b2b relation (business to business), this means the connection between two sellers. Secondly, there is the b2c relation (business to consumer), so the connection between seller and final consumer. In both business relations, the good producers are not involved. This is what we call “resale”: a seller sells third-part products.
Here, products are sold for example on personal online shops, marketplaces as Amazon, eBay or other sale channels.
An example of e-business for Amazon sellers
Since an Amazon seller itself is not the producer, he buys products from a manufacturer. They both use digital communication and information technologies in order to simplify and accelerate the business process. This can work by means of different systems. For example, he can use an order portal or be interconnected with the software “Enterprise Relationship” (ERP). In the best case, the seller´s warehouse is in this way connected to the producer´s one: in case of shortfall of the minimum quantity of the goods, is automatically sent a (re-)order to the producer.
Let´s assume that the seller sells his own products on Amazon. In this case, between Amazon and the seller there is an e-business relation. This is a classic b2b relation, since Amazon is not a final consumer. This is similar to the bricks-and-mortar retail. Different sellers on Amazon have the opportunity to offer their products as in a warehouse, but on an online platform.
A b2b relation occurs as soon as an Amazon customer add to the shopping cart the seller´s product and order it. Here are used again digital information technologies (orders on the online marketplace).
The e-business issue is extremely complex and there are many possibilities to treat this field. In case of “electronic commerce” there are complicated relations that happen in companies. The support of digital communication and information means should simplify and accelerate business connections.