E-commerce: what is it? E-Commerce - what is it? E-Commerce Partners Network - affiliate program of the largest online stores

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E-commerce is one of the components of electronic business and includes trade and financial transactions carried out through electronic networks.

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The English term E-Commerce refers to purchase or sale transactions using electronic means, doing business via the Internet.

Let's look at simple example What is e-commerce on the Internet?

This phrase refers to everything related to business automation, organization and support of commercial transactions in the Internet space. From specific examples, familiar to everyone, we can name sites for online booking of hotels, tickets, online stores.

However, it should be understood that E-Commerce is not limited to online trading. Income can be obtained from commissions from transactions, data exchange and other options.

E-commerce on the Internet can be represented in the form of three directions. Some sources additionally identify two more.

Types are understood as tools through which players in the E-Commerce market interact.

The list of the most common and used ones looks like this.

Taking into account that the concept of E-Commerce includes not only the Internet, you can add several more options.

• Selling information. This includes subscriptions to online services and databases.
• Electronic banks. They appear alongside traditional banking institutions and use all the necessary degrees of protection. By reducing rental costs, staff can offer more favorable financial conditions, such as lower loan rates.

Any innovations require preparation and elaboration of the legal framework. Today there is a whole area of ​​e-commerce risk management.

The main risks are determined by the problems existing in the e-Commerce sector.

• Globalization. The very essence of e-commerce helps to reduce distances, as it erases boundaries and helps to establish connections between any points globe. At the same time, issues of intercultural communications, culture of information consumption, principles of doing business in different countries ah remain open and will always be relevant. What are the solutions? Increasing involvement and investment in business not only at the level of numbers, but also partnerships, learning languages, traditions.
• Information security issues. Building a commercial activity through an online network requires sophisticated and effective solutions to guarantee confidentiality. One of the ways is to use system certification and access authorization.
• Copyright. At electronically product distribution requires elaboration of all aspects related to the protection of property rights. This is also quite an acute problem.
• Legal and tax field. Different legislation can be an obstacle. It is not always clear how to interpret transactions and in what jurisdiction to conclude them. Taxation features increase the list of points that need to be agreed upon and unified before a transaction takes place. A solution could be a separate legal framework for e-commerce and the introduction of its standards into the laws of different countries. Obviously, this takes time and resources.
• Features of the legislation of individual countries. In addition to issues of formalizing transactions, there are also global legal acts of international and domestic trade with many restrictions, agreements, and conditions. We have to develop a program on how to transfer all this to online transactions and what this or that measure means in e-Commerce.

E-commerce is one of the most powerful engines for the development of technology and international business. It is in the interests of every country and company to promote integration processes and simplification of procedures as much as possible.

To begin with, it is worth noting that the scope of eCommerce is much broader than the standard idea of ​​it. This is not only the sale of goods or services via the Internet: you can earn money from a percentage of transactions, data exchange, etc.

In addition, online commodity-money interactions have an extremely rich history, the roots of which go back to the middle of the last century. Today we will look at what e-commerce is, consider its types, categories, as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

E-commerce is usually called a business process (more broadly, the sphere of economics), including trade or monetary transactions carried out through computer and electronic networks.

Back in the 50s, American Airlines, in partnership with IBM, began developing a unique system that automates the reservation of seats on airplanes. The system exists to this day, is called SABRE - at one time it significantly facilitated air travel for passengers, helping to navigate fares, directions, etc. Today, SABER is used by more than 350,000 travel agencies around the world, 400 airlines, 100,000 hotels, 25 automobile brands and 14 cruise routes.

In 1971-72, with the aim of organizing purchases and sales between students at the Stanford laboratory artificial intelligence and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the famous ARPANET was used - computer network, developed by the US Department of Defense to maintain communications in the event of nuclear war. Monetary transactions made through this network have become one of the prerequisites for eCommerce. In 1979, English inventor Michael Aldrich demonstrated the first online shopping system, which involved simple transactions between buyers and sellers.

Over the past two decades, the eCommerce market has been developing particularly rapidly - which is due to the explosion modern technologies, the widespread availability of the Internet, the spread of social networks, and the evolution of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.

Traditionally, e-commerce on the Internet is divided into three groups, according to the consumer segment: B2B, B2C and C2C. Some call two more categories: B2A and C2A. Let's look at all 5 types of eCommerce.

1. B2B: " Business to business" The idea is simple - one company sells something to another company. The Internet here can significantly optimize processes: speed up operations, make relationships more transparent. An example is before your eyes. LPgenerator is a service for creating landing pages for businesses (although, of course, you can run landing page promoting a person personal brand- whatever).

2. B2C: " Business for the client" Everything is obvious here too. The company sells directly to individuals. Often, goods are sold in this format, sometimes services are sold (learning English via Skype, for example). This is where traditional online stores fit in, as well as a new trend - social trading (searching for customers and selling on social media).

3. C2C: " Consumer for consumer». Interesting model, involving a trading relationship between two people, neither of whom can be called a businessman. Resources that provide this opportunity, look like something between a flea market and a newspaper ad. The most common format is online auctions. They allow the buyer to save money, and the seller to sell what is unnecessary and recoup money.

4. B2A: " Business for administration" A specific format, the essence of which is the interaction of the entrepreneur with certain government agencies (local, federal). An example is a tender, or some bureaucratic operations that can be automated via the Internet.

5. C2A: " Client for administration" The most exotic type of e-commerce on the Internet, actively developing today. The essence is in the interaction of government organizations directly with people using certain services. The sphere is rather social. An example is the interactive portals of government service centers that exist in many cities.

Western researchers identify 8 categories of e-commerce on the Internet.

1. Large retail business. Conduct direct online sales. Such companies have automated processes for delivery, payment, etc.

2. Multifunctional online portals (domestic example: Yandex.Market). We can call them aggregators of goods and services. They give the client access to an assortment of different brands and charge a commission or placement fee from the seller.

3. Highly specialized portals, operating only in one area of ​​the market.

4. Internet auctions. Allow the seller and buyer to “meet” to conclude a transaction.

5. Cybersants - engaged in the distribution of intellectual, digital property (films, programs, literature).

6. Resources collective procurement, wholesale discounts - bring together people who want to save money by purchasing a large batch of goods at once for many participants.

7. Intermediaries for presentation and payment of bills: utilities, insurance, medical care, for a certain percentage.

There are at least three useful advice, or even a trend, the use of which will increase the usability of your resource.

1. Large images

High-quality visual content can be much more expressive than hundreds of words. A large image of the product (or anything related to it/its use) will reveal significant details of the offer, increasing visitor awareness - and therefore their level of satisfaction. In short, properly selected visual content can bring you a lot of additional income.

2. Trustworthy reviews

The scale of e-commerce has grown, making life more convenient for consumers and opening up new opportunities for businesses. Let's take a closer look at what it is and!

In a real store, you simply take your new jeans to the checkout counter, where you pay cash, and then walk out of the store with your purchase. Everything happens in a similar way when you buy online, but there is one thing important difference: You cannot touch the product until it is delivered to your home.

This creates new problems for retailers. In addition to needing a means to process transactions, they also need a way to verify that the item you ordered is in stock.

In other words, e-commerce combines three components: a server that operates an online store and processes transactions (creating appropriate links to bank computers to verify the buyer's card details). A database that can check the goods available in the store. As well as a delivery system associated with a warehouse, where the goods can be temporarily stored and from where they must be sent to the buyer.

Only the first of these three systems is absolutely necessary for an online store. Many people have success running small online stores without complex databases or logistics systems. All sales happen through a website where they take orders and then ship the items using more traditional methods. For example, small merchants who sell goods on eBay do not know how an online store works from the inside. Their “database” is in their head, and their “logistics system” is just a walk to the nearest post office.

Here is one example of how a complex, completely automated system e-commerce:

All these actions are invisible to the client, except for the computer he is sitting at and the courier who rings his doorbell.

To understand how an online store works, you need to understand that they must be accessible and have simple and clear navigation. Secure because no one is willing to enter their card details on a site that is not secure.

Setting up an online store is not easy. Not only do you need to create a special website from scratch, you also need to develop your own system, which can reliably process data bank cards clients.

These days, anyone can create an online store within minutes. Payment systems such as PayPal provide functionality for processing transactions. Many people set up virtual storefronts on eBay and then use PayPal.

Some platforms (particularly Amazon) allow you to host mini versions of your store on your own website for a small commission.

Successful companies like eBay and Amazon have proven that there doesn't have to be an obvious connection between a site's name and the products it sells. The main thing is that over time people recognize, love and begin to trust the brand, and begin to visit its website instinctively.

How you deliver products is also critically important: customers love fast delivery. But this does not mean that you need your own warehouse and fleet of trucks. Companies like Amazon have created sophisticated warehouse and dispatch systems that you can use too.

How does an online store work without a warehouse? You can sell not only traditional goods on the Internet. Many people make money by offering a combination of free and paid services. Yahoo! It is the most famous example of such a platform. Created as a comprehensive directory of other sites, it mutated into a search engine and then into a portal offering access to various types premium services. For example, you can create a free email on Yahoo or pay extra money for a more complex system. You can store your photos on Flickr for free, or pay to print or process them in a variety of ways.

Newspapers, magazines and book publishers are also trying to make money through a combination of free and paid services. Most of them offer basic content for free, making money from advertising. Some also offer some of their articles as part of a subscription.

Purchasing an article is a transaction similar to the one a user makes when purchasing an item on Amazon or eBay.

How online clothing stores work. For example, some offer free returns if you don't like the clothes. Many people simply cannot live without online stores. And they don’t even think about going to a real store, where prices are often higher.

For companies, e-commerce also opens up new opportunities. Not many of them can compete with huge businesses like Amazon or eBay. But anyone can open an online store and start trading. Small local shops whose existence is threatened by expansion large networks supermarkets, have found a second life thanks to online sales.

E-commerce also threatens many traditional ways doing business. When shoppers flock to online stores during the Christmas rush, they naturally spend less in physical stores. Realizing this, some companies, such as Wal-Mart, tried to somehow compensate for these losses by launching programs such as “bricks and clicks” (having a real store and a website tightly integrated with it).

Buyers have also become savvier and more experienced. Before purchasing a product from an online store, they try and evaluate it in a real store. Or, using websites, they search for local store branches where they can inspect and purchase exactly the products they need.

Before you start working in an online store, it is important to remember that e-commerce still represents only a part of all trade, but its share is growing steadily.

Steady growth in e-commerce share: This chart shows what percentage of total retail sales, has been occupied by e-commerce from 2006 to the present.

As always, customers make the rules, and that will continue to be the case. Some traders have tried to counter the threat from online retailers, but protectionist tactics are doomed to fail in the long term.

If you've been running a retail business for a long time, chances are you already have a website where you take orders from customers. But today, something new is emerging again that changes these rules - mobile commerce.

More and more more people use the Internet via mobile devices:

Amazon, Google and Facebook see the mobile segment as a critical battleground over the next few years. A 2012 Google survey found that 74% of users were more likely to return to a mobile-optimized site, and 67% said they were more likely to buy something from a mobile-optimized site.

Gartner predicts that mobile commerce will account for about half of all e-commerce revenue in 2017.

Before you start working in an online store, you need to check how the site works on a mobile device. There are various emulators and testers that you can use to simulate mobile devices on your PC (including a great tool built into your browser Google Chrome). But it's much better to take a real one modern smartphone with a browser or tablet computer and see how your site actually works.

If your site was designed to run on a standard widescreen laptop, you'll realize that it looks terrible: columns may shift and overlap, text and links are too small, and so on.

There are four options for optimizing your site for mobile devices:

Other technologies are now being developed, such as AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), which allow you to develop a mobile site much faster, but potentially sacrificing some of its functionality.

We are confident that all users reading this article realize how significant a place the Internet occupies in their lives. Global network opened up not only a number of cognitive opportunities for people, but also brought communication between users to a completely new level! Therefore, it was not news to anyone that the Internet began to be used to conduct online business.

Currently, almost every serious and diligent person is able to make money with the help of world wide web. "How?" - some will be surprised. The answer is simple - through e-commerce!

E-commerce is a very broad concept and includes many categories, which we will definitely discuss later. To give the most general interpretation of this term, we can say that this is a system of economic relations that are carried out using the Internet. In a narrow sense, e-commerce is online entrepreneurship.

• online trading
• electronic data exchange (since in the modern world one of the most valuable resources is information)
• electronic banking and insurance services
• money transfers and electronic funds
• electronic marketing (systems for collecting user data, electronic catalogs, directories, bulletin boards)

Today, almost every physically existing commercial organization (even the smallest) has its own website.

This can be a regular information site with basic information about the organization, services, answers to frequently asked questions, and contact information. Or it could be .

It all depends on the specifics of the organization’s work, its scale and goals. Also, this direction is an excellent chance for individual entrepreneurs who decided to try themselves as network businessmen.

In the modern world, more and more processes are becoming automated, so obviously this area of ​​Internet business will continue to develop successfully. Let's talk in more detail about the advantages and disadvantages of online commerce.

1) The main advantage is its ability to reach a global market without necessarily involving large financial investments and costs. The restrictions on this type of trade are not geographically determined. This allows consumers to make global choices, receive necessary information and compare offers from all potential suppliers, regardless of location.

2) Thanks to direct communication with the end consumer, online entrepreneurship reduces the chain of intermediaries, sometimes even completely eliminating them. This creates a direct channel between the manufacturer or service provider and end user, allowing you to offer products and services that match the individual preferences of your target market.

3) E-commerce allows suppliers to be closer to their customers, leading to increased productivity and competitiveness for companies. The result is an improved customer experience, resulting in greater intimacy as well as more effective pre- and post-sales support. Thanks to these new forms of e-commerce, consumers now have virtual stores that are open 24 hours a day.

4) Cost reduction is another very important benefit usually associated with e-commerce. The simpler and more convenient a specific business process is carried out, the greater the likelihood of its success. This results in a significant reduction in transaction costs and, of course, the prices charged to customers.

The main disadvantages associated with e-commerce are as follows:

1) Heavy dependence on information and communication technologies. This question is especially relevant for Russian market. Not present in all remote regions high speed internet, which would contribute to the development of online commerce;

2) Lack of legislation that adequately regulates new e-commerce activities both nationally and internationally. This also includes high percentage e-commerce fraud and lack of effective methods fight him.

3) Not all consumers are inclined towards e-commerce. For many customers, the ability to “touch” and visually evaluate a product is a key factor when purchasing certain products. The inability to fully assess the quality of the purchased item is the main factor hindering the development of e-commerce.

4) Loss of user privacy and insecurity when conducting online transactions. With the development of security technologies, the risk of this factor is significantly reduced. However, losing your money when paying online is much easier than losing it by handing it over personally to a seller in a store.

5) Threat of problems with delivery of goods, processing returns, etc.

The emergence of e-commerce gradually began to occur in 1998. Today, almost 20 years later, the total turnover of online commerce is $2.36 trillion. China, of course, ranks first in terms of online sales among all countries. Russia is only in 9th place, which means that there are development prospects in this area.

E-commerce is conventionally divided into more than 14 types. Let's highlight some of the most common and interesting ones and tell you more about them.

In this type of e-commerce, both participants are commercial enterprises. As a result, the scale and value of B2B e-commerce can be enormous. As an example of such a model, the following situation can be described: a smartphone manufacturing company is looking for wholesalers to sell its products.

Thus, in this scheme, goods are sold for their further resale to end consumers. The main goal of the B2B system is to increase the efficiency of online cooperation between companies.

Any business model is characterized by its own platforms through which trade relations are implemented. For the B2B scheme, such platforms are exchanges, auctions and catalogues.

Using the catalog you can get maximum information about the characteristics and properties of the purchased product. Buyers can also compare products by price, delivery times and conditions, reviews, etc.

Such information transparency can greatly facilitate the client’s choice. Most often, catalogs are created in areas where inexpensive goods are sold, for which demand can be predicted, and the price for which remains almost unchanged.

Auctions are typically held for unique types of items. For example, they may be rare items, specialized technical equipment, etc. Pricing here is never fixed and occurs right at the time of the auction.

The seller displays all of his lots, and numerous buyers offer ever-increasing prices if they are interested in the product. The auction for an item ends after a pre-agreed time, after which the item is awarded to the last highest bidder.

On exchanges, prices are formed in accordance with supply and demand, and therefore they are very rarely stable. The exchange is perfect for selling popular, common and simple goods with easily standardized characteristics. The exchange is also suitable for industries where price and demand fluctuate frequently. Exchanges often provide the opportunity to trade anonymously.

When we hear the term e-commerce, most people think of the B2C model. We can say that this scheme is a logical continuation of the B2B system, because it is the B2C type that ensures the delivery of goods to the end consumer.

Thus, the business-to-consumer type corresponds to our ideas about traditional retailing. The only difference is that in in this case trade is carried out via the Internet.

This type of relationship is most common in online commerce. There are already many virtual stores on the Internet that sell all types of consumer goods such as electronic appliances, software, books, shoes, cars, food, entertainment products, services and much more.

The business-to-consumer scheme provides many benefits to both the buyer and the seller:

For the seller, this scheme is beneficial mainly because there is no need to hire a lot of paid staff, as is the case in regular stores. The buyer no longer needs to waste time visiting the store: any product can be bought on the Internet after studying the characteristics and reviews.

Another well-known fact is that any item can be purchased via the Internet cheaper than in a regular store. On household appliances the price difference can be several thousand.

Examples of the largest online stores operating on the business-to-consumer system are: Amazon, ozon, Aliexpress, etc.

Based on the B2B scheme, another branch has emerged in e-commerce. Since 2010, the sale of goods through social media began to actively develop. networks, which is why this type of trading is called “social commerce”.

The B2B type is implemented using the following trading platforms:

• online stores
• Web- showcases
• social media

This area concerns trade relations between people who do not conduct business activities. Drawing an analogy with ordinary life, we can say that this is something like an advertisement in a newspaper about the sale of a particular product.

In Russia, well-known bulletin boards act as trading platforms for the C2C format: Avito, Yula, etc. Also, the C2C format began to spread widely on social networks. Are being created special groups, in which users post advertisements for the sale of things from any category.

Let's look at a few more existing schemes. Let us immediately note that they are much less popular and you can make money on them to the average user very difficult. The following diagrams are presented mainly to broaden the general horizons.

This type of e-commerce is very common in crowdsourced projects. Large quantity people make their services or products available for purchase to companies looking for those specific types of services or products.

Examples of this practice are sites where designers present several options for a company logo, and one of them is selected and purchased.

Other platforms that are very common in this type of commerce are marketplaces that sell photographs, images, media, and design elements.

This part of e-commerce covers all online transactions carried out between companies and public administration. This area is typical for areas such as fiscal, social security, employment, legal documents and registers, etc.

The consumer-administration model covers all electronic transactions carried out between individuals and the government apparatus.

This scheme can be used in the following areas:

• Education— dissemination of information, distance learning etc.
• Social Security— through disseminating information, making payments, etc.
• Taxes— filing tax returns, payments, etc.
• Healthcare– making an appointment, online consultation, payment for medical services

Both models associated with public administration (B2A and C2A) are closely related to the idea of ​​efficiency and ease of use of services provided to citizens by the government, supported by information and communication technologies.

Based on the information presented in the article, we will highlight several key points that characterize the main provisions of e-commerce.

— to carry out business transactions, there must be at least two participants. One of them will always act as a seller, and the other as a buyer.

— B2B (business-to-business) system – represents wholesale trade, and goods are sold here legal entities. The B2C (business to consumer) type is retail and brings the product to individuals(end consumers)

— Any user without special information and computer training will be able to earn money using B2C (business-to-consumer) and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) schemes.

— B2C commerce type is the most common type of e-commerce. Each user will be able to earn money in this way by creating their own online store. You can read more about creating your own online store without investments in this. We also wrote an article about - this is an excellent example that personifies generating income through the C2C system.

— In total, there are a lot of online business schemes. This list can be expanded to 30-40 schemes, depending on the subjects of economic relations. For example, if we consider the government to be a separate entity, we can come up with many more types of online commerce: B2G (Business to Government), G2B (Government to Business), G2E (Government to Employees), G2G (Government to Government), G2C (government to citizen), C2G (citizen to government). We remind you that all the main and generally recognized types were discussed in this article.

To summarize all of the above, we can only say one thing: “ continues to develop successfully, penetrating into narrower specialized areas of trade. The future belongs to the Internet and technology. Perhaps in a few decades, users will no longer need traditional retail stores. Until this happens, you just need to know that e-commerce is a great chance to make money and create your own business with minimal investment.

To connect Ecommerce you need:

In Ecommerce, any product is an object with which certain actions are performed. For example, viewing a full product description or adding to cart. This data is transmitted in the form of JavaScript objects containing the action identifier and a list of descriptions of the products with which this action was performed. In the context of the JavaScript API, we will call such objects Ecommerce objects.

To transfer data in the form of Ecommerce objects to Yandex.Metrica, you need to place them in a special JavaScript array using the push method. We will call such an array a data container.

Attention. Do not transfer data when the visitor moves to another page on the site. For example, when using the onclick event on the "Checkout" button. In this case next page may load before the counter code transmits data to Metrica. As a result, information about the event will be lost.

The data container must be in the global namespace, and its name must match the name specified when configuring the counter or when initializing the counter. If the data container is named dataLayer or the Metrics counter was initiated with the ecommerce parameter set to true , then the data container is assumed to be the window.dataLayer array.

window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || ; ... window.dataLayer.push ((...));

The name of the data container and the structure of Ecommerce objects nested in it correspond to similar entities in Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce. This means that if you have already configured sending data to Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce, including through the Global Site Tag, and enabled Ecommerce in Yandex.Metrica, the latter will also begin collecting data.

Note. The data container must not contain more than 2048 characters.

The ecommerce object looks like this:

Window.dataLayer.push(( "\n

Required container field

\n"))"> ecommerce

\n"))"> currencyCode

Possible values:

\n \n \n \n
• purchase - purchase.
\n

\n"))">

* Required parameter.

** Required parameter to transmit purchase information.

An object describing an individual product.

The structure of an object describing a product is denoted as .

Processed only if the action is purchase ( - purchase).

The structure of the object describing the action is denoted as .

When transmitting action data, Metrica creates a goal. It allows you to receive data on income from a Direct advertising campaign. In Direct, in the list of available goals, such a goal is displayed as “eCommerce: Purchase (counter no.)”. At the same time, you can track the achievement of the goal yourself by passing the field goal_id.

Object fields Field Type Description

id Required to be filled in."))">		Purchase ID. Required to fill out. Example: TRX#54321
coupon		Promo code associated with the entire purchase
goal_id		The goal number is available in the Yandex.Metrica web interface, in the Settings section (Goals tab).
revenue		Income received. If not specified, it is calculated automatically as the sum of the prices of all goods associated with the purchase

Object fields Field Type Description

id Required to be filled in."))">