The Scope of E-commerce
Companies involved in e-commerce as ether buyer s or sellers rely on Internet based technologies, and E-commerce applications and service to accomplish marketing, discovery, transaction, processing, and product and customer services processing.


For example, electronic commerce can include interactive, marketing, ordering, payment, and customer support process at E-commerce catalog and auction site on the World Wide Web, extranet access of inventory databases by customers and suppliers, intranet access of customer relationship management systems by sales and customer collaboration in product development via E-mail and internet newsgroup.


Many companies today are participating in or sponsoring three basic categories of electronic commerce applications, business-to-consumer, business-to-business and consumer-to-consumer E-commerce. However, many E-commerce concepts apply to such applications.

Business to Consumer or B2C
In this form electronic commerce, business must develop attractive electronic marketplaces to entice and sell product and services to consumer. For example, many companies offer E-commerce websites that provide virtual storefronts and multimedia catalogs, interactive order processing, secure electronics payment system, and online customer support.


Business to Business or B2B
This category involves both electronic business marketplace and direct market links between businesses. For example, many companies offer secure Internet or extranet E-commerce catalog websites for their business customers and suppliers. Also very important are B2B E-commerce portal that provide auction and exchange marketplace for businesses. Others may rely on electronic data interchange (EDI) via internet, or extranet for computer to computer exchange of E-commerce documents with their larger business customer s and suppliers.


Consumer to Consumer or C2C
The huge success of online auctions like eBay, where consumers can buy and sell with each other in an auction process at an auction website, make this E-commerce model an important E-commerce business strategy.