E-Commerce Applications - Essay Example

Generally, e-commerce applications cover a variety of systems and techniques, which businesses and entrepreneurs can use to meet their business and consumer objectives. Supply chain management, e-tailing and procurement, auction, commercial websites, and search engines are widely used to promote the popularity and efficiency of online businesses. In this context, a supply chain is, probably, the most popular and well-known form of e-commerce application. A supply chain can be generally defined as “a set of relationships between several companies who have a symbiotic relationship with each other in that one company supplies commodities or services to other companies which, in turn, supply commodities or services to other companies, and so on” (Kalakota & Robinson, 2005). That e-businesses all over the world apply to the benefits of supply chains is not surprising, for the latter have already become a conventional form of making business and an efficient instrument of establishing close relationships between suppliers and customers, as well as between them and their partners. However, supply chain management solutions would not suffice, to bring e-commerce to the current point of evolution: today, businesses and entrepreneurs online can use a variety of other applications, including e-tailing and procurement.

E-tailing is a popular form of making business online, which implies the use of archetypal solutions similar to those at Amazon.com. E-tailing is the general form of selling goods online and is often treated as a synonym for e-commerce, e-business, and business-to-customer transactions online. Amazon is, probably, the brightest example of how e-tailing works in practice: Amazon encompasses a variety of different applications and solutions that allow customers to make purchases online, track their orders, read feature articles about the products and books they want to purchase, and browse the books directly from the Amazon website. E-tailing is often compared to procurement, which implies the selling and delivering of goods that are not directly used by companies in their main business (Kalakota & Robinson, 2005). The process of procurement in online environments includes several steps, from making an order through a computer-based application form to getting the goods from the online seller (Kalakota & Robinson, 2005). Other e-commerce applications include auction sites and search engines, which are gradually becoming a common form of making business in the Internet environments (Kalakota & Robinson, 2005).

It should be noted, that as the Internet and online business is evolving, so do various forms of e-commerce applications. Today, the so-called recommender e-commerce applications are turning into the dominant way of bringing customers and businesses closer to each other. According to Schafer, Konstan, and Riedl (2008), recommender applications are those that work to suggest products to clients and give them the information needed to make a purchasing decision. The criteria used to recommend products and services vary, as well as the specific forms of recommendation – from personalized product information to community critique (Schafer, Konstan & Riedl, 2008). Recommender applications enhance the efficiency of online sales in three ways: they “convert browsers into buyers, increase cross-selling, and build loyalty” (Schafer, Konstan & Riedl, 2008). It would be fair to assume that the development of recommender applications in e-commerce marks a new stage in the development of online businesses worldwide. Read More