For most companies in the age of the Internet, electronic commerce is more than
just buying and selling products online. Instead, it encompasses the entire online
process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing, and paying for products
and services transacted on internetworked, global marketplaces of customers,
with the support of a worldwide network of business partners. As we will see in this
chapter, electronic commerce systems rely on the resources of the Internet, intranets,
extranets, and other technologies to support every step of this process. Thus, e-commerce is changing how companies do business both internally and
externally with their customers, suppliers, and other business partners. How
companies apply e-commerce to their business is also subject to change as their managers
confront a variety of e-commerce alternatives. The applications of e-commerce
by many companies have gone through several major stages as e-commerce matures
in the world of business. For example, e-commerce between businesses and consumers
(B2C) moved from merely offering multimedia company information at corporate
websites (brochureware), to offering products and services at Web storefront
sites via electronic catalogs and online sales transactions. B2B e-commerce, on the
other hand, started with website support to help business customers serve themselves,
and then moved toward automating intranet and extranet procurement
systems. But before we go any further, let’s look at a real world example. |