Electronic commerce or E-commerce refers to a wide range of online business activities for products and services. It also pertains to “any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical exchanges or direct physical contact.”
E-commerce is usually associated with buying and selling over the Internet, or conducting any transaction involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods or services through a computer-mediated network. Though popular, this definition is not comprehensive enough to capture recent developments in this new and revolutionary business phenomenon.
A more complete definition is: E-commerce is the use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals.

B2B e-commerce is simply defined as e-commerce between companies. This is the type of e-commerce that deals with relationships between and among businesses. About 80% of e-commerce is of this type, and most experts predict that B2B ecommerce will continue to grow faster than the B2C segment.

The B2B market has two primary components: e-frastructure and e-markets. Efra structure is the architecture of B2B, primarily consisting of the following:

•  Logistics - transportation, warehousing and distribution (e.g., Procter and Gamble)
•  Application service providers - deployment, hosting and management of packaged software from a
   central facility (e.g., Oracle and Linkshare)
•  Outsourcing of functions in the process of e-commerce, such as Web-hosting, security and customer
   care solutions (e.g., outsourcing providers such as eShare, NetSales, iXL Enterprises and Universal
    Access)
•  Auction solutions software for the operation and maintenance of real-time auctions in the Internet
   (e.g., Moai Technologies and Open Site Technologies)
•  Content management software for the facilitation of Web site content management and delivery
   (e.g., Interwoven and Procure Net)
•  Web-based commerce enablers (e.g., Commerce One, a browser-based, XML enabled purchasing
   automation software).

Business-to-consumer e-commerce, or commerce between companies and consumers, involves customers gathering information; purchasing physical goods (i.e., tangibles such as books or consumer products) or information goods (or goods of electronic material or digitized content, such as software, or e-books); and, for information goods, receiving products over an electronic network.

It is the second largest and the earliest form of e-commerce. Its origins can be traced to online retailing (or e-tailing).13 Thus, the more common B2C business models are the online retailing companies such as Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Beyond.com, Barnes and Noble and Toys Rus. Other B2C examples involving information goods are E-Trade and Travelocity.

The transformation of an organization’s processes to deliver additional customer value through the application of technologies, philosophies and computing paradigm of the new economy.

Three primary processes are enhanced in E-business:

The transformation of an organization’s processes to deliver additional customer value through the application of technologies, philosophies and computing paradigm of the new economy.

Three primary processes are enhanced in E-business:

•  Production processes, which include procurement, ordering and replenishment of stocks; processing
   of payments; electronic links with suppliers; and production control processes, among others.
•  Customer-focused processes, which include promotional and marketing efforts, selling over the
   Internet, processing of customers’ purchase orders and payments, and customer support, among
   others.
•  Internal management processes, which include employee services, training, internal information
   sharing, video-conferencing, and recruiting. Electronic applications enhance information flow
    between production and sales forces to improve sales force productivity. Workgroup
    communications and electronic publishing of internal business information are likewise made more
    efficient.