Definition of E-Commerce

According to Dictionary.com, the definition of E-Commerce is "The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. As most restrictively defined, electronic commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications. However EC also includes all inter-company and intra-company functions (such as marketing, finance, manufacturing, selling, and negotiation) that enable commerce and use electronic mail, EDI, file transfer, fax, video conferencing, workflow, or interaction with a remote computer.

Electronic commerce also includes buying and selling over the World-Wide Web and the Internet, electronic funds transfer, smart cards, digital cash (e.g. Mondex), and all other ways of doing business over digital networks.

E-commerce describes the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products, services and/or information via computer networks, including the Internet (Turban et al. 2004:7). E-commerce can be defined from the following perspectives:

• Communications – From a communication perspective, e-commerce is the delivery of goods, services, information, or payments over computer networks or by any other electronic means (Turban et al. 2004:7).
  
• Commercial (trading) – From a commercial perspective, e-commerce provides the capability of buying and selling products, services and information on the Internet and via other online services (Turban et al. 2004:7).
  
• Business process – From a business process perspective, e-commerce is doing business electronically by completing business processes over electronic networks (Turban et al. 2004:7).
  
• Services – From a service perspective, e-commerce is a tool that addresses the desire of governments, firms, consumers, and management to cut service costs while improving the quality of customer services and increasing the speed of service delivery. (Turban et al. 2004:7).
  
• Learning – From a learning perspective, e-commerce is an enabler of online training and education in schools, universities, and other organizations. (Turban et al. 2004:7).
  
• Collaborative – From a collaborative perspective, e-commerce is the framework of inter- and intra-organizational collaboration (Turban et al. 2004:7).
  
• Community – From a community perspective, e-commerce provides a gathering place for community members to learn transact and collaborative (Turban et al. 2004:7).