The Organisations are performing manufacturing and merchant functions as well. The information revolution is automating their merchant functions, including retailing, wholesaling, and input procurement. It has changed the way of merchandizing with reducing the cost of transactions.
The information revolution can be termed as Electronic commerce i.e. E-commerce (hereafter e-commerce) in which all electronically mediated information exchanges between an organisation and its external stakeholders.
E-commerce shows strategic impact on the organisation in all respect. Buyer-side e-commerce transactions and seller-side e-commerce transactions considered for that.
Buyer or Supplier side e-commerce refers to transactions to procure resources needed by an organisation from its supplier. Whereas, Sell side e-commerce refers to transactions involved with selling products to an organisation’s customer.
An E-commerce is a commonplace for the transactions between an organisation and its stakeholders according to whether they are primarily with consumers or other Businesses or Government. This decides the Business model of that organisation.
E.g. B2C- Business to consumer e.g. Amazon etc.
B2B- Business to Business e.g.EC21 etc.
B2G-Business to Government e.g. Feedback to government businesses and NGOs
C2C- Consumer to Consumer e.g. eBay etc.
C2B- Consumer to Business e.g. Priceline etc.
C2G- Consumer to Government e.g. Pressure groups
G2C- Government to Consumer e.g. Tax online
G2B- Government to Business e.g. Tax
G2G- Government to Government e.g. Exchange of Information
B2B direct business model :B2B direct supports commerce transactions involving products, services, or information between two businesses or parties. Typical B2B direct transactions occur between buyers, suppliers, manufacturers, resellers, distributors, and trading partners.
The following diagram demonstrates a typical B2B direct business.
EC21 is EC21 is the world’s largest B2B marketplace to facilitate online trades between exporters and importers from all around the world.
Let take an example of one of the Suppliers of EC21 i.e. Guangzhou E.Box Digital Technology from China and another one of the Suppliers of EC21 like TradeTang.com from China , who are wholesale supplier. Here, EC21 is acting as a platform for B2B transactions.
Guangzhou E.Box Digital Technology Product Co., Ltd. (a member of E.Box Great Enterprises Group) is a leading global manufacturer of laptop cases and computer peripherals, E.Box main business includes laptop cases, laptop messenger bags, laptop trolleys, laptop backpacks, CD/DVD cases, digital camera/camcorder bags and other storage accessories & peripherals for computers.
| 2010/05/29 (yyyy/mm/dd) |
Buyer / Seller in EC21 | Seller |
Business Type | Manufacturer |
Year established | 2002 |
Employees total | Above 1000 |
Annual revenue | More than 100,000,000 |
TradeTang.com is a China wholesale Product center. Unlike other worldwide commercial platforms, the TradeTang.com is a globalized B2B wholesale center that collects made-in-China merchandise all over the country from sellers directly link to the manufacturers. Most of our products are straightly from factories, which means the lowest prices.
Technologies used by Buyer/Seller side e-commerce are :
1. Blog: Blogs are used to customer comment and response, which decides the ‘Customer rating’ for that product.
2. Customer Database: Databases are maintained about the information like where customers directly visited the site or using the natural search, what is the ‘Click ratio’ , buying tendency etc. This database is very important to maintain the history of the customer to understand the behaviour pattern.
3. Wikis: Updated information about the organisation and its products.
4. Twitter: Social networking sites are playing very important role in the e-commerce. Customer gets information about the product or the organisation.
5. Website in general: Websites which display information about products.
6. RSS: Rich Site Summary is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in.
7. Flash Demos: Short, quick and cheaper way of promotion.
8. Facility like ’Your Suggestion’: The organisation site asks for the Suggestion to customize their product. This is the Win-Win position for Buyer and seller.
Conclusion:
In this information revolution small enhancement can lead the efficiency of transactions of intercompany and can cut down the cost of transactions. So, proper handling of this information is a crucial area to work upon and from there a trust building factor can be very strong to promote e-commerce transactions in the world.
References:
· Chaffey Dave,2002, E-Business and E-commerce management : Strategic, Implementation and Practice
· David Lucking-Reiley and Daniel F. Spulber,June 2002, BUSINESS -TO - BUSINESS ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, Working Paper No. 00-W16