1. E-commerce

2. Overview of E-commerce
Definition:
Electronic Commerce (EC) describes the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services, and information using computer network and the Internet. It also include servicing customers, collaborating with business partners, conducting e-learning, intra business activities, and conducting electronic transactions within an organization.

3. E-commerce forms
EC can take several forms depending on the degree of digitization of :
1-product 2-process 3-Deleivary agent.
All of them can be physically or digitally.
examples: buying SW is pure digitally, buying a shirt is partially digital and partially physically.
Any transaction that is partially digital is an E-commerce transaction.

4. EC organization are pure physically organizations, but companies engaged only in EC are virtual organizations.
EC can done over the:
1-Internet 2-Value-Added networks ( VAN) that add communication services to existing common carriers such as LAN.
* For example: buying food from vending machine, buying with smart cards or cell phone are all EC activities.

5. Types of EC transactions
1-Business to business (B2B): seller and buyer are organizations.
2- collaborative commerce (c-commerce): sharing business activities electronically.
3-Business to consumer (B2C): seller is an organization, buyers are individuals.
4-consumer to business (C2B): consumer names a service, the organization try to fulfill it. (it looks for a supplier to the service).

6. 5-consumer-to-consumer (C2C): individual sells product to other individual.
6-intra business (intraorganization) commerce: internally improve org. functions.
7-government to citizens (G2C) or others: government provides services to citizens using EC technologies. It can do business to other governments.
8- mobile commerce (MC): EC is done in a wireless environment, using cell phones to access the Internet.

7. EC models Some of the major EC models are:
1-Online direct marketing sell directly to customers.
2-Name-your-price (use priceline.com)
3-Find the best price: specify your need, compare prices, choose the best price.
4-virtual marketing: spread your brand on the NET.
5-membership model: for members only.

8. EC benefits To organization:
1- Expands a company’s market place to national and international markets.
2- decreases cost of creating, processing, distributing, storing, and retrieving information by digitized process.
3-enables companies to get material and services from other companies faster and cheaper.
4-enables small business to compete with large ones.

9. EC benefits To customers
1-provide less expensive products and services provided by online services.
2- gives customers more choices to select from.
3-makes it possible for people to work and study at home.
4-allows consumers to communicate and exchange ideas.
5-enables customers to shop 24 hours daily.
6-delivers detailed information in seconds.

10. EC benefits
To society
1- enable individual to work at home, and do less traveling.
2- allows some good to be sold at low prices which increase the living standards.
3-enables people in developing countries to enjoy products and services that are not available in these countries.

11. Limitations and failures of EC
There are technical and not technical limitations which slowed the growth of EC, some of which are:
A- Technical limitations:
1-lack of universally accepted standards.
2-insufficient telecommunications bandwidth
3-still-evolving SW development tools.
4-difficulties of integrating the Internet and EC applications and SW with some existing applications and DBs (especially legacy).
5-need for special WEB servers.
6-expensive and inconvenient Internet accessibility.

12. B- Non Technical limitations:
1-unresolved legal issues (for quality, security, and reliability).
2-lack of national and international government regulations and industry standards.
3-lack of mature methods for measuring EC benefits.
4-many sellers and buyers wait for EC to stabilize before they take part.
5-customers resistance to change from real to virtual store.
6-thinking that EC is expensive and unsecured.

13. EC mechanisms The most common are: A-Electronic auctions B-Portals
A mechanisms where sellers place offers and buyers make sequential bids. It uses competitive nature for reaching a final price.
The Internet provide an efficient infrastructure,
a less expensive and with many participants of sellers and buyers.

14. Auction types
1- Forward: used as a selling channel for one seller to many buyers.
- products are placed in a site like eBay.com. Sellers and buyers can individuals. They bid continuously and the heights bidder wins the items.
2- Reverse auctions: there is one buyer, (an organization) that wants to buy a product or services. Then suppliers are invited to submit bids. Online bidding is fast and attracts many bidders. The lowest bid wins.

15. Auction Benefits Benefits to sellers:
Increase revenues in a short period of time.
More buyers means more optimized selling prices.
Saves auction fees, administrative expenses.
Enables more liquidation

16. Benefits to buyers
- increased chances to find unique products.
Chance to bargain instead of buying a fixed price.
Entertainment buyers enjoy e-buying.
Anonymity buyers remain anonymous.

17. Portals E-commerce portals(المداخل الى التجارة الالكترونية):
As the Internet and Intranets are widely used, more and more information are gathered which (overload) . Information is scattered across documents, messages, and database in different locations and systems. This makes finding accurate and relevant information takes time and requires access to multiple systems.

18. To solve this problem PORTALS are used.
Portal is an information gateway. It attempts to address information overload through an intranet-based environment to search and access relevant information from disparate IT system and Internet using advanced indexing and search techniques.

19. Information portal:
A single point of access through a Web browser to critical business information located inside and outside an organization and it can be personalized.

20. Types of Portals
Portals vary according to audiences and contents. We consider five types:
1- commercial (public): offer routine contents for different audiences, most popular on the Internet, intended for broad audiences.
Examples : yahoo.com, lycos.com
2-publishing portals: intended for specific groups of specific interests. They provide extensive on line search.
examples: techweb.com and zdnet.com

21. 3-personal portals: contain specific filtered information for individuals. Offer narrow contents for one audience. Example any personal web page.
4-mobile portals: accessible from mobile devices.
5-voice portals: web sites with audio interface, they can be accessed by a standard phone or cell phone.

22. Functionality of Portals
Functionality vary from simple information portals that stores data and enables users to navigate and query them to more sophisticated one that allows collaboration.
Collaborative commerce refers to non-buying and selling EC transactions. It refers to joint product design, joint forecasted demand and other decision making activities among organizations. Example, collaboration between a company and a vender who is designing a product or part of it.

23. Legal and Ethical issues in E-Commerce
When buyers and sellers do not know each other and can not even see each other (they may be in different countries), there is a chance that dishonest people will commit fraud and other crimes over the Internet.
Internet fraud has grown very fast even faster than the Internet itself.

24. E-commerce
Process of buying, selling, transferring, exchanging products, services, or information over computer networks
Pure versus partial
Based on degree of digitization
Product
Process
Intermediary
Pure requires all three components to be fully digitized
Internet versus non-Internet
Most are Internet based
May be value-added networks or local area networks

25. E-commerce Transactions
Business-to-business (B2B)
Business-to-consumer (B2C)
Consumer-to-consumer (C2C)
Consumer-to-business (C2B)
Government-to-citizens (G2C)
Collaborative commerce between partners
Business to employees
Intrabusiness/Intraorganizational commerce
Mobile commerce (M-commerce)

26. Scope of E-commerce Applications supported by infrastructure
Hardware
Software
Messaging, multimedia, interfaces, business services
Networks
communications
Support areas
People
Legal and public policy and regulations
Marketing and advertisements
Support services ranging from payments to order delivery
Business partnerships like joint ventures, e-marketplaces, affiliations

27. Advantages Advantages: Expands marketplace globally
Expands availability of resources
Shortens marketing-distribution channels
Decreases expenses
Reduces inventory
Aids small businesses in competing
Enables specialized niches
Quicker delivery of information
Enables individuals to work from home
Facilitates delivery of public services
Allows for purchase of goods at lowered prices
Enables customization, personalization
Decreases costs to customers, while increasing their choices
Allows for 24 hour shopping
Makes electronic auctions possible
Enables people to interact in electronic communities

28. Limitations Limitations: Lack of universal standards
Insufficient bandwidth
Software-development tools are still evolving
Integration difficulties
Need for special Web servers in addition to network servers
Accessibility expensive
Unresolved legal issues
Lack of national and international governmental regulations
Lack of mature methodologies to measure benefits and justify
Customer resistance
Security questions
Insufficient number of buyers and sellers for profitable e-commerce operations

29. E-commerce Mechanisms
Electronic auctions
Competitive market mechanisms
Forward auctions
Sellers place offers and buyers make sequential bidsعروض
Reverse auctions
Sellers are invited to submit bids on product or service buyer wants
Barteringمقايضه
Exchange of goods or services without money transactions
Portalsبوابات الانترنت
Information gateways
Single point of access through Web browser

30. Portals Commercial Publishing Personal Mobile
Offer content to broad audiences
Routine
Little personalization
Publishing
Based on specific interests
Extensive search capabilities
Personal
Target specific filtered information
Narrow content
Personalized
Mobile
Accessible through mobile devices

31. Portals Voice Corporate Audio interfaces Accessible through phones
Access to business information located both within and outside of organization
Rich content
Limited communities
Organized focal point
Suppliers
Customers
Employees
Supervisors

32. Legal and Ethical Issues
Fraud
Seller’s and buyer’s
Buyer protection
Seller protection
Unwarranted repudiation
Intellectual property rights
Domain names
Privacy issues
Cookies
Web tracking
Sales of lists
Monitoring s and site visits
Taxation
Disintermediation
Intellectual Property issues