E-Commerce and E-Business are two entirely different terms but sadly they’re always used interchangeably by a lot people. The main reason for this lies in the significance of”business” and”trade” in English language. But there’s a gap between e-commerce and e-business. There are many men and women who know the subtle differences between the two and there’d always been a disagreement among both of these groups about the similarities and differences between e-commerce and e-business. The goal of writing this guide is to clearly bring out the differences between the two as the two of them are completely different phenomenon.
The differences between the two are as follows:
- E-Commerce is the subset of E-Business. If you recall the Venn diagram you studied in college then you can very well understand what I am attempting to convey. The later one is a really wide concept while the former one is only a small portion of it. This connection will be cleared from the subsequent points.
- Those activities which basically involve monetary transactions are termed as”e-commerce”. But, e-business is a much broader term. There are quite a few other things besides promoting such as but not limited to marketing, procurement of raw materials or merchandise, customer education, searching for suppliers etc..
- To market online is e-commerce except to bring and retain clients and educate them online about the item or service is e-business. Using a website to do it isn’t sufficient. However, having a professionally developed website loaded with latest technology to catch the attention of the visitor and acquire his/her appreciation is necessary. When money is involved then the first thing that user looks for is security and safety of his/her money. Using a website laden with such qualities is vital.
- When Dell sell computers, laptops, printers, monitors, accessories online then it isn’t engaged in e-commerce however e-business. Allow me to tell you how. When a visitor comes on the website, the first thing he see is website design and navigation in addition to those things that will help him find what he is looking for and when he immediately lands on the page he was looking for, he looks for the information associated with it. The information provided should be clear and appealing maximum doubts of the customer in order to convert him in a customer. Till now no money was exchanged nor been talked about. So, was this e-commerce? No, it’s e-business which guides the visitor.
- E-commerce has also been described as a procedure covering external processes that touch customers, suppliers and external partners while e-business covers internal processes like manufacturing, inventory management, product development, risk management, finance etc..
E-commerce can be described as using the Internet and the web to transact business. More formally, digitally enabled commercial connections between and among individuals and organizations. On the other hand, e-business can be described as the digital enablement of trades and process in a firm, involving information systems under the control of the company. Moreover, e-business applications become e-commerce exactly when an exchange of value happens.
