What is Electronic Commerce?

Electronic commerce is the process of two or more parties making business transactions via computer and some type of network - e.g. a direct connection of the Internet. This includes business-to-business transactions, online retail, and digitalization of the financial industry.

E-commerce is actually a group of technologies including EDI (electronic data interchange), EFTs (electronic funds transfers) and ATMs (automated teller machines). [Clarke, 1998] It is a tecnology that is about carrying out a wide variety of business-related activities electronically rather than on paper or by fax.

With electronic commerce, information travels directly from the sender's computer to the recipient's computer, most commonly via telephone lines. It does not have to be printed out at any stage in the process.

An initial experiment in e-commerce may be as simple as purchasing a ticket from a reservation system or buying a book, but soon an entire world of shopping convenience emerges.

Useful links of definitions about E-Commerce

Esprit's e-commerce webpage. This is a private company website, with great concepts about this topic. http:http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/ecomint.htm#CATEGORIES/[back to text]

Israel Institute of Technology, Apil, 1998
http:http://techunix.technion.ac.il/~orena/ec/[back to text]

References

[Clarke, Roger] E-Commerce definition. Dept. of Computer Science, Australian Nat'l. University January, 1998. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/ECDefns.html#EC/[back to text]