Ecommerce vs Ebusiness: What’s the Difference?
Many people think ecommerce and ebusiness are one and the same, but they’re different in some key respects. Let’s clear the confusion right away and dive straight into what sets these two apart.
What’s ecommerce all about?
You can think of ecommerce like this: all cognac is brandy, but not all brandy is cognac. Just like that, all ecommerce is ebusiness, but ebusiness isn’t always ecommerce.
Basically, ecommerce is the buying and selling of products or services over the internet. For instance, think of Amazon or any brick-and-mortar store that has a website. It also includes digital goods like ebooks, game add-ons, software, and online services like freelancers, educators, or fitness trainers who can offer their services online.
And now, let’s talk about ebusiness:
Ebusiness, on the other hand, is using the web (which can be the internet, intranets or extranets) for business activities. This includes managing supplies, processing orders, and managing relationships with customers.
In simpler terms, let’s say ebusiness helps companies work efficiently. Examples of ebusiness include email marketing, systems controlling inventory (alerting when levels go too low), content management systems for workflow management, and online HR tools for job posting or maintaining employee data. More such examples involve online customer service, supply chain management, inventory management, product development, risk management, and finance-related activities.
The noteworthy thing here is you can handle these processes not just online, but also via intranet or extranet.
So, how do these two fit together?
It’s important to note that ecommerce relies heavily on ebusiness but the converse isn’t true. Without the foundation of ebusiness’ processes, ecommerce wouldn’t stand as we know it today. If we look at key ecommerce activities like sending promotional emails, payment gateways, order confirmations, and shipping, they all need ebusiness to function.
To wrap it up, understand this: ecommerce and ebusiness are indeed connected, but they are not the same. Ecommerce is just a piece of the larger ebusiness picture. So if you ever get confused between the two, remember that ecommerce wouldn’t be possible without the larger umbrella of ebusiness it sits under, but ebusiness has many other roles to play beyond ecommerce.