eBusiness is oftenly confused with eCommerce. However, they are not exactly the same thing.
eBusiness or “e-Business” is short for Electronic Business. A standard definition for eBusiness is that it is the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support and enhance all the activities and areas of business (offline and online).
Commerce on the other hand, is more concerned with transactions – the buying and selling of goods and services. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and as a result, can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business.
ECommerce (Electronic Commerce) is simply the process of buying and selling goods with the use of information and communication technologies, such as the Internet.
eCommerce focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesses. In other words, eCommerce in very simplistic terms really refers to online shopping, but also involves telesales and so on.
eBusiness is more than just eCommerce. eBusiness refers to the overall strategy and use of ICT while eCommerce deals with the just the transaction aspects.
eBusiness for example, would include blogging and publishing newsletters to garner support and attention for the company’s products and services, while eCommerce would only focus on the transaction aspects such as order processing, payment processing, invoicing, and the subsequent deliver of the goods and services.
The eBusiness aspects would draw the attention of the customer, while eCommerce deals with the exchange of goods and services for money.
So then, eCommerce is actually just part of the whole eBusiness process. While eBusiness is more about the strategic focus with an emphasis on the functions that occur using electronic capabilities and technologies, e-commerce is only a subset of an overall eBusiness strategy.
The function of eCommerce within the eBusiness strategy is to add revenue streams using the Internet, or in other words provide the means via which payments can be accepted in exchange for goods and services.
For example, at eBusinessDomains.com, the eCommerce aspect would be accepting payments via Paypal for domain sales, while this blog post on the other hand, forms part of the wider eBusiness strategy.
eCommerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of eBusiness. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions. For example, supplying clients with wire transfer information in order to receive payments.
