E -business and e-commerce are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, and sometimes they are used to differentiate one vendor 's product from other. But the terms are different, and that difference matters to companies.
In both cases, the e stands for "electronic networks" and describes the application of electronic network technology - including Internet and electronic data interchange (EDI) - to improve and change business processes.
E-commerce covers outward-facing processes that touch customers, suppliers and external partners, including sales, marketing, order taking, delivery, customer service, purchasing of raw materials and supplies for production and procurement of indirect operating-expense …show more content…
The number of users subscribing to their services in 1995 was estimated at 8 million people, and was projected to grow at a rate of 35% a year.
CompuServe hosts 200 odd merchants on its electronic mall. Presently, the visits to the mall by the customers have increased by 78% and the orders by 50% each year. CompuServe is now expanding its mall to the Internet. It will make use of WWW along with its tools or graphics, audio and video to make the mall attractive to its customers. Similarly, Prodigy, a joint venture of IBM and Sears, too has a mall and it has also connected to the Internet. Prodigy was the first to offer WWW access. It also connected merchants with its members, offering space for advertisement on the screens. America Online, On the other hand, took the direction of creating distinct sites for corporations wishing to reach a target audience. For examples, ExpressNet developed for America Express allows its cardholders to make travel reservations, check credit card balances, pay bills, and purchase traveler’s cheques and foreign currency electronically. Other store fronts on the mall are tower records, Hallmark Cards etc. It has also connected with the internet, and started providing built in browsers for seamless web …show more content…
This mall has been operational since june, 1993 and is the equivalent of direct sale catalogue stores. Nearly 10000 people visits this websites with some 250000 hits every day. Once the Customer places an order, EDI is used to transfer orders to the vendors. So, each vendor selling his wares must have standard EDI connections to the ISN. With higher sales volume with, EDI, it is important to check inventory in real time, to alleviate back-order problems, and also makes it is easier for a customer to track his packages on Federal Express. ISN also allow advertising on the