E-Commerce

These days, people have benefited from the internet in lots of different ways. They have used it for entertainment, social activity, businesses and many more. One of the uses for businesses through the internet is e-commerce. So, what is e-commerce? E-commerce is an activity which involves buying and or selling products through the internet. E-commerce has changed the business industry and it will no longer be the same. Buyers do not need to meet the sellers as they can buy the product online. It is much more efficient and easier for both parties.  

There are several types of e-commerce that are quite popular these days. First, there is business-to-business e-commerce or in short B2B. B2B is an e-commerce that both the buyers and sellers are business platforms. They use this type of e-commerce usually to order the products from the distributor or buy the raw materials for their product. The examples of B2B e-commerce are Amazon business, ACME, and Ralali 

Secondly, there is business-to-consumer e-commerce (B2C), which involves the business organization as the seller and a normal consumer. This type of e-commerce is mainly used by consumers for shopping their daily needs and wants. Customer usually cannot contact the business organization to discuss about the product. Examples for this type of e-commerce are Matahari, Zalora, and Nike online stores.   

Finally, there is consumer-to-consumer e-commerce (C2C). This e-commerce involves both the sellers and buyers as normal consumers. Meaning that both parties can buy or sell their products in the same application or website. In this case, buyers can contact the seller to discuss about the product. Tokopedia, Shopee, and Instagram are the few app/websites used for this type of e-commerce. 

Of course, there are other types but these three specifically are the most commonly used right now.  

E-commerce has helped both the sellers and buyers in lots of different ways. Here are some advantages brought by e-commerce: 

• Uses less time to buy products because buyers are literally a button away to buy products and all transactions are done online so they will not need to step out of their house. 
• Consumers can buy products at any time and place because e-commerce websites are accessible 24×7 and it can be accessed through your smartphone/laptop easily. 
• Cost reduction, by having websites/apps to sell their products, business organizations will not need to pay for building needs such as rent, electricity, water, and repairing fees because it is all done online. 
• Can reach out to a wider range of customers because it is done online so it can be accessed globally. 

Of course, e-commerce has its own downsides. It has weaknesses like other business concepts. Here are a few of them: 

• Lack of touch for the product because the product cannot be touched as it is online 
• Privacy issues because as it is online, there may be hackers that will hack the business organization or the consumer’s account. 
• Cannot be accessed without internet, sure internet can be found easily in big cities but what if the consumer is located in a remote area, which they can hardly find any signal. 
• Scammers, these scammers are usually found in C2C e-commerce which the image to promote the product is vastly different with the original product or they sell fake products which they claim to be original. 

E-commerce has been a major aspect of our lives these days especially in the recent months due to Co-vid 19 issues. Our daily needs are primarily done online so we need to be thankful for the emergence of e-commerce. Without it, it will be much harder to live. But as consumers, we need to use it wisely and not be totally dependent on it. We have to be wise when using e-commerce platforms. 

References : 

• The slides provided in Binus Maya 

• https://www.niagahoster.co.id/blog/apa-itu-ecommerce/ 

• https://www.x-cart.com/blog/b2b-ecommerce-examples.html 

• https://services.amazon.in/seller-blog/advantages-of-ecommerce.html 

• https://www.tutorialspoint.com/e_commerce/e_commerce_disadvantages.htm