What is Ecommerce?
What is e-commerce? Electronic commerce or e-commerce is all buying and selling activities carried out through electronic media. Although the ingredients include television and telephones, e-commerce is now more prevalent over the internet. Because of this understanding, there are misconceptions about e-commerce and the marketplace. The term e-commerce is used to describe all transactions that use electronic media.
Has the question about what is e-commerce been answered? If so, let's move on to the next discussion, namely the types of e-commerce.
1. What Are the Types of Ecommerce?
After understanding what e-commerce is, you must also understand the types of e-commerce. You might think that online trading only takes place between a seller and a buyer. However, e-commerce is divided into six groups, namely:
- Business to business (B2B) - The type in which a company sells a product or service to another company. In this e-commerce model, buyers usually order goods in large quantities. An example is a company that purchases office supplies from a manufacturer.
- Business to consumer (B2C) - In this type of e-commerce, a company sells products or services to consumers. In general, customers in B2C e-commerce only retail. If you have ever purchased from an online store, this activity is included in this category.
- Consumer to consumer (C2C) - Have you ever sold used goods to other people who need them via the internet? This activity is included in this type of e-commerce. In other words, C2C is an online transaction between two individuals.
- Consumer to business (C2B) - In contrast to B2C, e-commerce C2B is a scenario where someone sells a product or service to a company. A graphic designer, for example, offers and sells his logo to a food business.
- Business to public administration (B2A) - This e-commerce model is similar to B2B, but the perpetrators are businesses and government agencies. An example of B2A is a website creation service for an online administration system.
- Consumer to public administration (C2A) - This type of e-commerce runs like C2B. However, transactions are carried out by individuals and government agencies. Ecommerce with the C2A model is rarely found in Indonesia. The types of transactions that occur are usually in the form of services.
2. What Are the Benefits of Ecommerce?
The development of the e-commerce industry in Indonesia is speedy. With so many online business people, you must be wondering again, after knowing what e-commerce is,? The benefits of e-commerce? Here are some of the advantages you can get:
- Broad reach - As a conventional store owner, you can only reach buyers from the same area. It's different if you have an e-commerce website. This way, buyers from all over the country can make transactions at your shop.
- Not limited by time - Shops in the real world can operate 24 hours a day, but the costs to support it can be huge. Through the internet, shoppers can still access and buy from the store even if they are fast asleep.
- Cheaper costs - The operational costs of online stalls are meager compared to building shops. At least, you don't need to think about employee salaries, building rent, and electricity costs.
- Ease of managing transactions and shipping - By having an online store, you don't have to bother thinking about transacting and shipping goods. Now there are various electronic payment services made via the internet. Also, You can track consignments online.
- You can learn customer habits - Running an online business without understanding customer behavior will waste your investment. Currently, You can use many analytical tools to study your online store data, such as Google Analytics.
So that's an explanation of what e-commerce is. E-commerce offers many advantages over conventional stores. For example, you are not limited by the time and place to run an online store website. Currently, there are various platforms to support e-commerce businesses, including online marketplaces and social media.