what is e-commerce?

In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, it is extremely important for businesses to embrace the latest methods and trends to conduct their businesses. With the advancement of technology, particularly the Internet, the world has discovered a new path of opportunities, switching the transactions of traditional business models into a better model far superior in terms of efficiency, productivity, profitability and competitiveness. This is where e-Commerce comes into the picture in which is simply a short form for "Electronic Commerce". e-Commerce is generally the "in-thing" today, which concept covers the global information economy which include electronic trading of goods and services, electronic fund transfer, online procurement, direct marketing, electronic billing, etc, through the internet via the computer. e-Commerce does not change the core of businesses, which is to generate profitability from transactions, but it is to change the mindset of how to go about generating profits through an efficient manner. This simply means obtaining information at our fingertips, without wasting time, money and effort, and also to conduct real time transactions in a "borderless world" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With e-Commerce transactions, it is a Win-Win situation for the parties (both buyers and sellers) participating in it. It offers distinguished benefits such as less overhead expenses, larger advertising market exposure, and reduces middle man participation and all these benefits are easily understood and quantifiable.

e-Commerce itself is categorized into several sections. Among the sections are Business-To-Business (B2B), Business-To-Consumer (B2C), and Business-To-Government (B2G).