How Do You Differentiate E-Commerce And E-Business?

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After the emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent worldwide lockdown in response, the practice of shopping online has gained tremendous popularity. In view of this, most people conduct their online shopping or business using their computers or smartphones connected to the Internet wherever they are located. These have been made possible by E-Commerce and E-Business, two popular networks.

Both terms have the same meaning for most people. However, they are not. Both terms are different and close to each other. eCommerce or online business consists of its transactions with its customers, clients, and suppliers. Alternatively, e-business is defined as using information technology and communication in order to conduct industry, trade, and commerce.

Confused, right? What are the major differences between eCommerce and e-business? This post will answer all your questions. We will also understand the meaning of both terms and will explain to you how they seem the same but work differently.

E-commerce and E-Business at a Glance

Today, most businesses have to go online, or rather make their online presence felt strongly on the Internet, as it has become increasingly important. The Internet has also greatly influenced their overall behavior since customers nowadays prefer to use everything available online.

As a result, the age of e-business and e-commerce began, becoming a pervasive reality that now seems unavoidable. Let’s simplify things that let you understand the basics of e-commerce and e-business as well.

From the above table, you can see what makes both terms different. Anyway, it was a basic explanation. Now let’s understand both the terms in detail and learn what concepts make them unique.

Overview of E-Business

Source: Temok

In short, e-business involves a company’s presence online. As well as the term E-business, it can also be described as the state of doing business via the Internet or electronic data exchange. Despite its importance, e-commerce is not an essential aspect of e-business.

As an e-business, it isn’t just about buying and selling products but also interacting with customers, working with employees, and responding to queries. Clients and business partners can contact companies if they have any questions or concerns about services.
Popular examples of E-business are online store companies and their different internal business operations, auction sites, classified sites, readymade websites, and app builders, online educational portals, etc.

There are two kinds of e-business,

• Pure-play
• And Brick and Click

The best example of Pure play is Hotels.com, where business only has an electronic presence. Whereas for the Brick and Click model, you can consider Amazon, as it consists of both, online and offline presence.

Here’re the activities of E-businesses

• Online store setup
• Educate customers
• Selling and purchasing products
• Financial business transactions
• Email marketing
• Logistic management

Here’s another example. According to data derived from Elluminatiinc.com having a mobile app can actually drive 70% of revenue and business growth in today’s times. Therefore, more and more entrepreneurs are stepping into e-business as it enables them to run businesses without hefty investments.

If your business has an offline existence but you operate your business operations online, then it will also be considered an E-business. Whether or not your business has a physical presence on the internet, you can perform your business operations via the internet.

What Stands for E-Commerce?

Source: Grand View Research, Inc.

An e-commerce platform commonly refers to an online store of a business or brand that sells various products and goods online. Considering that the two terms are quite closely related, it’s pretty clear that there’s bound to be some confusion between the two.

Because these two are so closely interconnected, and internet usage is spreading rapidly (another factor in common between them) in addition to the proliferating online population, both of these terms are interdependent in every way.

Well, there are several types of e-commerce

• B2B (business to business, for instance, Alibaba)
• B2C (business to customer, for instance, Facebook, Flipkart)
• C2C (consumer to consumer, for instance, Olx, Uber)
• C2B (consumer to business, for instance, Google Adsense)
• C2A( consumer to administration, for instance, income tax, tuition fees, etc. )

The most relevant examples of E-commerce are online retailers such as Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, Walmart, sellers of digital books, and online services.

The E-commerce concept has gained huge momentum in recent years, though some people are unaware of what activities E-commerce businesses carry out:

• Buying and selling products digitally
• Online payment
• Online payment of various taxes
• Online customer support
• Online accounting software

For instance, in order to engage with its users effectively, an online lingerie retailer- Zivame implemented a push notification strategy. And how did they do this? With the help of simple and robust marketing automation software. And the results? The push notification strategy led to an uplift of 20% of conversions.

What Makes E-Business and E-Commerce Differ?

We can now look at the differences between e-Commerce and e-Business after we’ve discussed their key characteristics. The below points provide an overview of how e-Commerce and e-Business differ.

1. In E-commerce, only selling and buying products is done over the internet while in E-business, all the activities are being performed through the internet.
2. E-business’s major branch is e-commerce.
3. Although e-commerce includes financial transactions, e-business includes monetary transactions and other related activities as well.
4. In order to run business effortlessly, E-Business does not require a physical presence. But for e-commerce, the company has both physical and online presence to operate a business.
5. Whether conducting business worldwide via e-commerce or e-business, both require the use of the Internet. E-Commerce is limited to Internet-based operations, while e-Business is beyond that. For instance, businesses also use an extranet to connect with buyers and suppliers.

Conclusion

Above we have given you a clearer picture of both popular terms e-commerce and e-business. Despite their similarities, both words have very different meanings. Although, It can assist you in designing your business model and your customer’s experience by knowing the difference between eCommerce and ebusiness.