Everything about e-commerce. Trading platforms for the "business-to-business" scheme

E-commerce on the internet

Electronic commerce on the Internet (e-commerce) is a commercial activity in the field of advertising and distribution of goods and services through the use of the Internet. Currently, e-commerce is developing rapidly and, according to statistics, more than 100 million people worldwide have made at least one purchase in online stores, and the annual turnover of e-commerce in 2000 exceeded $ 100 billion.

One of the fastest growing areas of e-commerce is hosting (from the English word host - server), that is, services for placing information on the World Wide Web. Hosting includes the provision of disk space for hosting Web sites on a Web server, providing access to them over a communication channel with a certain bandwidth, as well as site administration rights.

An important component of e-commerce is information and advertising activities. Many firms post on their Web sites on the Internet information important for the consumer (description of goods and services, their cost, company address, telephone and e-mail, which can be used to make an order, etc.). There are specialized servers that provide the consumer with systematized (by types of goods, manufacturers, prices, etc.) information about a specific group of goods. For example, the server www.newman.ru contains information on prices for all types of computer equipment, which are offered by various firms in Moscow.

Advertising on the Internet is implemented using banners (from the English word "banner"- "advertising headline"). On the Internet, a banner is a small rectangular picture that displays an advertisement for a Web site or Web page.

Rice. 4.18 Banner

Banners can be either static (the same picture is shown) or dynamic (pictures are constantly changing). Clicking on a banner with the mouse leads to a transition to the corresponding site or page, where you can learn more about what the banner advertises.

Banners are placed on sites either on a paid basis or by exchange. Using a banner exchange system that links many sites and allows them to advertise each other increases the traffic to each of them.

Widespread on the Internet received electronic commerce... Its simplest option is virtual "flea market"(bulletin board), where sellers and buyers simply exchange information about the proposed product (analogue of the Iz Ruk v Ruki newspaper) - fig. 4.19.

An interesting form of e-commerce is Internet auctions... A variety of goods are exhibited at such auctions: works of art, computers, cars, and so on. For example, on the www greatdoma-ins ru server, Internet domain names are put up for auction (Fig. 4.20).

The buyer in the online store has the opportunity to get acquainted with the product (technical characteristics, appearance of the product, and so on), as well as its price. Having chosen a product, the consumer can make an order for its purchase directly from the Internet, which indicates the form of payment, time and place of delivery, and so on. Payment is made either in cash upon delivery of the goods, or by credit cards.

Recently, for payments via the Internet, they began to use digital money... The buyer transfers a certain amount of ordinary money to the bank, and in return receives a certain amount of digital money that exists only in electronic form and is stored in a "wallet" (using a special program) on the buyer's computer. When making payments via the Internet, digital money goes to the seller, who transfers it to the bank, and in return receives ordinary money.

Practical tasks

4.26. Find online store addresses using search engines and familiarize yourself with e-commerce rules.

2014 was a watershed year for e-commerce. Global sales hit an all-time high of $ 1.3 trillion. Alibaba has become the largest IPO in the history of online commerce. The vast majority of US shoppers now choose to shop online. In general, it was a good year.

The ecommerce year 2015 promises to be even more productive, with a projected 6.4% growth in sales turnover. Experts observe the desire of market players to support this growth, and for this, many companies are focusing on improving the overall quality of customer service and reducing complexity and inconvenience wherever possible.

It is this drive that has identified the five major e-commerce trends that will dominate ecommrece 2015.

1. Creating a responsive design

66% of all time spent visiting e-commerce sites is on mobile devices.

At the same time, 61% of users are ready to leave the site immediately if it is not adapted for a smartphone or tablet. The preference for mobile apps is no longer news, but the rate of increase in this preference is enormous. This speed just explains the demand for site optimization not only for smartphones and tablets, but in general for a variety of screens - responsive design is now an absolute priority.

Responsive design assumes an improved user interface for browsing the site, the main principles of which are easy reading of text content and simple navigation with at least the ability to scroll screens, panning and resizing the window. Today, only 9% of the leading online stores are responsive, but this ratio is changing rapidly to meet the growing demands of users.

The benefits of responsive design include increased website traffic, increased user loyalty, and higher customer conversion rates. This simplifies the work with site traffic, which is optimized for key platforms, both stationary and mobile. In the absence of a single sizing template, multi-platform shopping will become even more popular, which is what many e-commerce brands are now striving for. To be honest, my company site is one of 91% of ecommerce sites without responsive design. But we set a goal to create it in 2015.

1. Withdrawal to the Apple Pay payment site

Tadaaaaam - last year Apple released a payment system for its "bricks". And, despite the fact that Apple Pay is still positioned as an in-store payment system (that is, operating within one store), in the very near future it may become available to a wide range of online sellers.

Apple has already entered into agreements with network service providers such as Lyft, Uber and Airbnb, and these agreements involve long-term partnerships that go beyond working with Apple devices.

If Apple Pay really decides to enter the 2015 e-commerce space, it will provoke a definite change of players in the payment system sector.

For merchants, this will mean easier payments, lower credit card transaction costs, and the potential to participate in Apple's marketing programs — the obvious benefits are more than enough.

1. Combined content + commerce

This year, more and more ecommerce sites are combining content and commerce to create lifestyles “spaces” that are so enjoyable for shoppers to come back to. Plus, quality content doubles the performance of your brand and SEO tools.

Etsy is a prime example of this trend. The company does a great job of combining content and commercial part, employs a staff of artists and designers of various profiles to position and promote individual projects using their social media platforms.

This helped Etsy become something more than just an online store - a kind of web space for users of various groups, from ordinary people to artists who want to show their work, people interested in art and adherents of a bohemian lifestyle.

Birchbox is another great example of an ecommerce site that successfully creates high-quality content and uses it for additional revenue streams.

The company's blog is filled with style tips that are very discordant with the publications of such glossy magazines as Cosmo and GQ. And in the same place, in the blog posts, there is an opportunity to buy the items mentioned in the text, for example, a dress, a blouse or a watch. Here, content and commerce work together to achieve the same goal of driving a website visitor to a purchase.

1. Video orientation

According to Cisco forecasts, by 2017, 69% of all user Internet traffic will be video content. And as buyers become more responsive to visual presentations and prefer responsive templates, video can become the main and central way to demonstrate a product and its details - these will no longer be simple demos, but full-fledged showrooms.

The visualization bias towards video is already showing a strong ROI for the ad industry, especially in the brand retail class. Many companies have already shown good achievements in this field.

Videos are a great way to deliver high-quality content to the user, which means they can significantly increase the average conversion rates for orders. Moreover, based on the 2015 trends described above, you need to focus on mobile video. Last year alone, 25% of all video views were on mobile devices, which is 19% more than in 2013.

Thus, as mobile devices become the dominant e-commerce platform, merchants should also look at the use of video content across multiple channels.

1. Mastering full remarketing

The proliferation of mobile devices has provoked the emergence of an "always present" client. Sellers can now connect with buyers whenever and wherever they are. Take Facebook, the dominant social platform, with the average user viewing their feed up to 14 times a day. So Facebook provides an opportunity to drag and drop a colossal mass of users to your site. As a result, the conditions for online merchants for reselling and off-site remarketing are now perfect.

This is why in 2015, merchants will stop looking at Facebook's ROI and start using it as a multi-channel marketing tool. Facebook itself fully supports the remarketing trend. Its sales jumped 50% at the end of 2014 and, together with mobile applications, accounted for 70% of advertising turnover. Two years ago, this figure was only 23%.

Ultimately, 2015 ecommerce trends are driven by continuous improvement in customer experience and streamlining of the shopping journey. This will allow to bring the turnover of online stores to a new level and significantly improve the performance of 2014.

• Original: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244085
• Translation: Tatiana Sinenko for

Systems and forms of e-commerce

1. E-commerce as a form of doing business

The European Commission in 1997 defined e-commerce as the science of how to do business electronically. Electronic commerce is based on electronic processing and transmission of information using text, sound, video. It covers a lot directions of activity,including electronic commerce in goods and services, online digital communications, electronic stock trading, electronic invoice transfer, commercial auctions, joint projects and engineering, public procurement, direct consumer market research and after-sales services. It trades products (eg consumer goods, specialized medical equipment) and services (information services, financial and legal services), traditional activities (health care, education) and new types of business (e-mail).

There are three components of e-commerce:

• participants;
• processes;
• networks.
• The processes that are the content of a commercial transaction are also typical for e-commerce.
• E-commerce integrates a wide range of business processes:
• information exchange;
• establishing contacts between potential customers and suppliers;
• sale of goods, including information products, and provision of services;
• settlements, including using electronic payment systems;
• delivery management, including the transfer (distribution, delivery) of information products;
• pre- and after-sales support;
• organization of virtual enterprises.
• As a new technology for conducting commercial transactions on a global scale, e-commerce is fundamentally changing the modern business world by:
• globalization of spheres of activity (each market entity gets the opportunity to have a global presence and do business on a global scale);
• reduction of distribution channels for goods (organizations can themselves perform functions traditionally performed by intermediaries);
• increased competition (competition is becoming global);
• personalization of interaction (an individual approach to each client);
• reducing the cost of transactions.
• Security, protection of intellectual property rights, legal issues that are part of e-commerce need to be improved.
• E-commerce has many benefits.These benefits include better promotional opportunities, lower costs, timeliness of information, faster remittance times, uniformity of information, improved customer service, competitive advantage and business convenience.
• Describing e-commerce as a new technology for conducting commercial transactions, there are two e-commerce models:
• horizontal;
• vertical.

Horizontal e-commerce modelallows you to evaluate the structure of its technology from the point of view of the organization (enterprise). The horizontal model identifies the following components of the organization's business: market research - sales - supplies and payments.

In practical terms, the horizontal model represents the stages of an electronic transaction. It can be assumed that if at least two of the last three components of the model (contract, delivery, or payment) are presented on the network, then one of them will necessarily be present in an electronic transaction.

Vertical e-commerce modelstresses the effective role of the various stakeholders (government and public authorities, enterprises) in creating the conditions for the development of e-commerce in the countries they represent. It includes the following levels: telecommunications infrastructure, electronic communications, ground rules, industry-specific rules, application and implementation of corporate strategies.

2. EC systems

E-commerce involves at least two participants. The main participants involved in cooperation in this process include: enterprises, individuals, government agencies and departments.

These participants form the main e-commerce systems:

1."Business - business" (business - business, B-B),

2."Business - consumer" (business - consumer, В-С),

."Business - government" (business - government, B - G),

."Consumer - government" (consumer - government, C - G);

."Consumer - consumer" (consumer - consumer, С-С).

The most developed systems were "business-to-business" and "business-to-consumer".

1. The "business - business" system

In system "Business - business"legal entities (commercial organizations (enterprises)) act as sellers and buyers. The business-to-business system includes complex interactions in the procurement, manufacturing and planning process, complex payment terms, and round-the-clock execution agreements.

The involvement of partners in the "business - business" system is ensured by the joint nature of the activity. In particular, businesses form long-term alliances, which reduce their operating costs. The joint nature of commercial activity requires the collective use of common information by business partners, including the prices of goods, inventories, and the status of supplies. In the "business-to-business" system, both private networks and the Internet can be used to organize interaction between partners.

Many business-to-business systems are created according to the principle of deep specialization and with a clear selection of a potential circle of clients. At the same time, the financial result is formed in the form of commissions from a more clearly calculated turnover and advertising, which makes the forecast of future profit streams more reliable.

Depending on who controls the market (buyer, supplier or intermediary), the following business-to-business e-commerce systems are distinguished:

Buyer-oriented,in which the buyer purchases a wide range of products and uses the Internet to organize the market on his server, and the website to participate in the bidding of suppliers.

Supplier-oriented,when a manufacturer or supplier invites commercial and individual consumers to order goods at an organized location in an electronic marketplace.

Intermediary-oriented,in which the central place is given to the intermediary organization of e-commerce, organizing an exchange market in which buyers and sellers can transact. The mediator pays special attention to the execution of orders.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), almost all sources speak of the dominance of the business-to-business system in the e-commerce market. The well-known 80:20 rule can be interpreted as follows: about 80% of the turnover of all e-commerce falls on the "business-to-business" system.

The e-commerce market of the business-to-business system is 10 times larger than the market of the business-to-consumer system.

2. The "business-consumer" system

The “business-to-consumer” system implies that individual consumers act as buyers, and legal entities act as sellers.

For the successful development of the "business-consumer" system, it is necessary: ​​a significant number of private users, which form a sufficient consumer demand; broad development of the corresponding network in the country; developed payment systems; delivery services; the required legislative regulation of this type of business; customer confidence in this type of business; sufficient amount of funds from buyers.

The main interaction operations in the "business-consumer" system are : viewing the catalog of a commercial enterprise; placing orders; payment for goods (services); execution of orders; sending responses.

The differences between business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce are more significant than between retail and wholesale.

3. The "business - government" system

Information technologies are used not only by business entities, but also by the state, performing the functions of a regulator of market processes. New informational relations of market subjects are reflected in the "business - government" system, where legal entities and government agencies act as parties to business relations.

The modern approach to the state is based on the fact that it has all the characteristics of a large corporation: it has a budget; costs; income; it acts as a subject of the world market, generalizing the activities of its economic agents; it has shareholders and, at the same time, clients - citizens who are interested in making state services as cheap and accessible as possible.

4. The system "consumer - government (state)"

The “consumer - government (state)” system is the least developed, but it has a high potential for development, especially when organizing interaction in such areas as social and tax.

5. The "consumer - consumer" system

The last allocated system "consumer - consumer" is also at the beginning of its development. This system includes the interaction of consumers for the exchange of commercial information, as well as forms of auction trade between individuals.

The specifics of the industry in which the organization (market entity) operates, its capabilities and the goals it sets for itself determine the choice of a system for doing business in the network. In addition, a business organization can combine and complement different types of e-commerce systems.

3. Forms of e-commerce

1. Electronic store

Electronic score- a specialized site with which you can interactively buy or sell goods and services, having previously read the information about these goods (services).

Unlike traditional stores, an e-store can offer a wider range of products and services; provide consumers with complete information about the properties of goods.

Personalization of sales is developing due to the use of modern computer technologies, i.e. an individual approach to each customer, taking into account the previous experience of working with him.

Electronic stores are closest to our everyday life and therefore attract attention in the first place. In addition, their presence creates a number of advantages for both the store owner and the customer.

An e-store allows the owner to:

• create an electronic catalog of goods or services offered to the market, which is constantly available on the Internet;
• organize a round-the-clock sales channel;
• independently manage the work of the store, promptly updating information about the goods and services offered;
• automate the order acceptance system (e-mail messages about order transactions are sent to the buyer automatically); "
• ? to conduct a multicurrency extract of documents (dollars - rubles), using the internal exchange rate;
• set the mode of automatic determination of the customer's category (wholesale, retail, etc.);
• organize work in the "business - business" system for servicing remote branches and business partners;
• provide feedback (polls, questionnaires, sweepstakes, mailing lists, etc.) for marketing research on the market and creating a client database;
• analyze the work of the store on the basis of statistics that are automatically generated in the course of the work of the store;
• get effective advertising support for your business;
• connect one or more online payment systems for immediate settlements;
• organize a delivery service for goods to the buyer;
• connect an online guide (the ability to communicate with the buyer in real time);
• connect a news system on the site;
• create an e-mail newsletter informing customers about new products that have appeared in the store;
• integrate the store with office systems, such as warehouse and accounting, to automate the process of transferring information to the databases of the electronic store.
• An e-store allows the buyer to:
• select a product from the catalog and place an on-line order using the Web interface;
• make a sale and purchase transaction at any convenient time;
• make a payment using one of the currently available methods;
• receive an e-mail confirmation of the placed order;
• constantly monitor the current status of the placed order on-line or by e-mail.

Electronic showcase- a dedicated Web site that contains detailed information about the products offered for sale and offers to place an order, which then goes to the regular office by e-mail.

Automated storeis a Web site that not only provides information about products, but also automatically interacts with databases.

Internet Trading System (TIS)- the most complex full-fledged system for organizing trade via the Internet, it is directly related to the internal automated trading system of a commercial organization. This is very important, because when organizing an e-shop, there are always problems of linking e-business with a traditional one.

Depending on the method of creating an electronic store, the following options are distinguished:

· rent of a ready-made store;

· purchase of "boxed" software;

· custom development;

· independent project development.

2. Electronic auction

One of the unique features of the Internet is the unification of people from a wide variety of geographic regions based on narrow interests. These user groups are called upon to serve electronic auctions.

Each electronic auction has a person conducting the auction (auctioneer), a seller, a buyer. For its implementation, a legal basis, trade objects, interest of counterparties in participation are required. Only registered users can participate in the auction both as buyers and sellers. Participants are guaranteed that information of a confidential nature is provided only by the counterparty to the transaction (after the completion of trading). After registration, participants will receive a password by email. Bidding on positions on the electronic auction runs for a limited time, which is determined by the seller. The closing time of the auction is indicated in the product description.

Taking into account the proposed objects, auctions are distinguished that implement:

• consumer goods;
• goods and services with a limited period of sale or previously produced goods with a specific period of sale;
• goods of limited demand, for example, fine art samples, collectibles.
• Taking into account the economic effect from participation in the auction, one can distinguish:
• auction as an efficient coordinated mechanism in the context of limited resources;
• auctions as a social mechanism for setting prices;
• auction as an effective unifying mechanism;
• auction as an efficient distribution mechanism.
• 3. Corporate portals
• Portals are one of the most recent forms of e-commerce, emerging in 1998.
• A portal can be defined as a Web site intended for a specific audience (customers and employees of a commercial organization) that provides:
• combining content and delivering information that is important to this audience;
• teamwork and team services;
• access to services and applications for a select audience, provided on the basis of strict personalization.

At its core, the portal analyzes, processes and delivers information and provides access to various services based on the personalization of users using any device connected to the Internet.

By 2001, the following classification of portals by purpose was formed:

?megaportals(horizontal, public) - are original Internet portals that appeal to the entire Internet community, and not to a specific group with a specific interest, for example Rambler, Yahoo, Lycos;

?vertical portals (vortals)- Serving highly specialized communities (groups) or markets (eg car market, travel agencies, women-only products). Vertical portals are also sometimes referred to as sub-portals. They exist for almost any audience with a niche on the Internet, and any such market has more than one vertical portal. The number of vertical portals is growing rapidly;

?business-to-business portals- created in order so that businesses can interact with each other or complete their joint business operations. Such portals provide clients with a variety of e-business mechanisms (eg, vendor selection, procurement, and auctions).

?corporate portals- are formed for the target audience, limited by the framework of large enterprises and corporations.

4. Electronic trading platforms

The increasing volumes of commerce in the "business-to-business" system lead to the emergence of electronic trading platforms, which represent a virtual market space for conducting e-commerce in the field of transactions and sales, providing information about goods, services, as well as to support communication between sellers and buyers

Electronic trading platforms are a much more complex type of intermediaries, since in addition to the information exchange itself, they provide the opportunity to carry out purchase and sale transactions and provide participants with guarantees for the implementation of such transactions.

The economic basis for the functioning of electronic trading platforms is a fee for each transaction (transaction), the so-called. commission fee. Depending on the volume of the transaction by industry, the size of the commission charged fees range from 1% to 10% of the transaction amount. Transaction fees are the primary source of income for many businesses. Transaction revenue models can be organized in many ways, such as charging a certain percentage or a fixed amount on a transaction, usually based on a purchase order or invoice. In addition, either the seller or the buyer can pay the transaction fee.

Electronic trading platforms also perform such functions as:

Software sales;

• professional services;
• advertising placement;
• organization of subscription.
• Many online marketplace solution providers provide access to the valuable information they hold through a subscription. For example, for a monthly fee, they provide an opportunity for buyers to receive information of interest to them about computer products and their distributors.
• The emergence of certain types of trading platforms depends on the degree of influence of buyers and sellers in a given field of industry, with this in mind, there are three types of electronic trading platforms:
• buyer-driven platforms.Large commercial organizations can create their own marketplace to attract many suppliers;
• sites created by vendors (such as supplier-driven).Along with large buyers, large sellers also play an active role in the formation of trading floors;
• third-party-driven marketplaces(technology companies, associations, banks, news agents, chambers of commerce or other market players), which is designed to bring buyers and sellers together.
• The following trading platforms are distinguished by the type of management
• independent trading marketplace -a portal as a network community of market participants managed, as a rule, by a purely virtual independent operator that does not have "physical divisions";
• private marketplace,created, managed and controlled by one large "physical" commercial organization (corporation);
• industry sponsored marketplace,owned by specially created industry consortia. This form of interaction between customers and suppliers is typical for industries with a high degree of concentration, such as automotive, petrochemical, and defense.

Each of the above types of trading platforms has certain functional capabilities that vary depending on the type of platform.

Taking into account the specialization of the participants' activities, the following types of sites are distinguished:

? vertical trading platforms,uniting commercial organizations (enterprises) within the boundaries of the chosen industry or suppliers and dealers of one enterprise;

? horizontal trading platforms (intersectoral),uniting, within the framework of the trading, settlement or auction system, groups of commercial organizations belonging to different industries, but solving similar tasks: the search and sale of raw materials, materials, new and unused equipment, free production facilities, capital, etc.;

? mixed,combining characteristics of the first two.

Ideally, any site should be neutral in relation to all players, they should be sure that they are working only for their own interest. At the same time, it is necessary that the site be liquid so that large volumes of trade can pass through it.

There are four models for organizing trading platforms, including:

?online catalog - a model for organizing an electronic trading platform, which allows, when searching for goods, to compare them at once according to several parameters, including price, delivery dates, guarantees, service information, etc.;

?auction- the model of the organization of the trading platform, the main difference of which from the online catalog is that the price is not fixed, but is set during the auction;

?exchange- an electronic trading platform, where the price is regulated by supply and demand, as a result of which it is subject to strong changes;

?community- electronic platforms of this type bring potential buyers and sellers together on the basis of a common professional interest.

Analysts' forecasts regarding the future of virtual trading floors are highly controversial.

Literature

e-shop business consumer

1.Abchuk, V.A. Commerce: textbook / V.A. Abchuk. - St. Petersburg: Publishing house of Mikhailov V.A., 2000 .-- 475 p.

2.Automated information technologies in economics: textbook / V.V. Braga [and others]; under total. ed. G.A. Titorenko. - Moscow: UNITI, 2006 .-- 399 p.

.Varakuta, S.A. Product quality management: textbook. allowance / S.A. Warakuta. - Moscow: INFRA-M, 2001 .-- 207 p.

.Consumer newspaper. 2000-2007

."Demand" magazine. 2000-2007

.Informatics: data, technology, marketing / ed. A.N. Romanov. - Moscow: Finance and Statistics, 1991 .-- 224 p.

.Information technology: textbook / ed. V.A. Grabaurov. - Minsk: Modern School, 2006 .-- 432 p.

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Owners of online stores are familiar with the concept of "e-commerce" firsthand, they certainly know the answer to the question "e-commerce - what is it". But if you look at the essence, then many nuances emerge and this term acquires a broader meaning.

E-commerce: what is it?

The general concept is as follows: e-commerce means a certain approach to doing business, which involves the inclusion of a number of operations that use digital data transmission in the provision of goods or the provision of services / works, including using the Internet.

Thus, this is any commercial transaction that is carried out using an electronic means of communication.

The scheme of work is arranged as follows:

• anyone can be a blogger or any other owner of their own website) registers in this system;
• gets its own link;
• places a special code on its web page - an advertisement of the selected official partner of the e-Commerce Partners Network appears;
• monitors the conversion of the site;
• earns a certain percentage for every purchase made by a visitor to his site who clicked on an affiliate link.

WP e-Commerce

A large number of people are now passionate about e-commerce, primarily because of the desire to create their own website, a unique online store for selling their own products. To meet this growing demand, the developers have concentrated on creating an e-commerce template. What it is, we will consider further.

One such template example is WordPress e-commerce. It is a shopping cart plugin for WordPress (one of the most famous web resource management systems), intended primarily for creating and organizing blogs). It is provided completely free of charge and allows site visitors to make purchases on the Internet page.

In other words, this plugin allows you to create an online store (based on WordPress). This e-commerce plugin has all the necessary tools, settings and options to meet modern needs.

For starters, it's worth noting that the eCommerce industry is much broader than the standard view of it. This is not only the sale of goods or services over the Internet: you can earn on a percentage of transactions, data exchange, etc.

In addition, online commodity-money interactions have a rich history dating back to the middle of the last century. Today we will analyze what e-commerce is, consider its types, categories, as well as advantages and disadvantages.

Definition of the term

It is customary to call e-commerce a business process (more broadly, the sphere of the economy), which includes trade or monetary transactions carried out through computer, electronic networks.

Back in the 1950s, American Airlines partnered with IBM to develop a unique system to automate seat reservations on planes. The system exists to this day, it is called SABER - at one time it significantly facilitated air travel for passengers, helping to navigate in 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, the famous ARPANET, a computer network developed by the US Department of Defense to maintain communication in the event of a nuclear war, was used to organize purchases and sales between students at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Monetary relationships generated through this network have become one of the prerequisites for eCommerce. In 1979, the English inventor Michael Aldrich demonstrated the first online shopping system, which consisted of the simplest transactions between buyers and sellers.

Over the past two decades, the eCommerce market has been developing especially rapidly - driven by the explosion of modern technology, the ubiquity of the Internet, the proliferation of social networks, and the evolution of Web 1.0 into Web 2.0.

ECommerce Categories

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

1. В2В: " Business to business". The bottom line is simple - one company is selling something to another company. The Internet here is able to significantly optimize processes: to speed up operations, relations are more transparent. An example is in front of your eyes. LPgenerator is a service for creating landing pages for business (although, of course, you can launch a landing page that promotes a person, a personal brand, whatever).

2. В2С: " Business for the client". Here, too, everything is obvious. The company sells directly to an individual. Often, the sale of goods takes place in this format, sometimes - of services (learning English via Skype, for example). This is where traditional online shopping fits in, as well as a new trend - social trading (finding customers and selling on social media).

3. С2С: " Consumer for consumer". An interesting model involving a trade relationship between two people, neither of whom can be called a businessman. The resources that provide this opportunity are like something between a flea market and a newspaper ad. The most common format is online auctions. They allow the buyer to save money, to the seller - to sell unnecessary things, having beaten off money.

4. В2А: " Business for administration". A specific format, the essence of which is in the interaction of an entrepreneur with some state structures (local, federal). An example is a tender, or some bureaucratic operations that can be automated via the Internet.

5. С2А: " Client for administration". The most exotic type of e-commerce on the Internet, actively developing today. The essence is in the interaction of state organizations directly with people using certain services. The sphere is rather social. An example is the interactive portals of public service centers that exist in many cities.

Types of companies

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

1. Large retail business. Carry out direct Internet sales. Such companies have automatic delivery, payment, etc. processes.

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

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

4. Internet auctions. Allows the seller and buyer to "meet" to close the deal.

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

6. Resources for collective purchases, wholesale discounts - unite people who want to save money by buying a large batch of goods at once for many participants.

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

Usability in eCommerce

There are at least three useful tips, or even trends, the application 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 a product (or anything related to it / its use) will reveal significant details of the offer, increase visitor awareness - and therefore their level of satisfaction. In short, properly selected visual content can bring you a lot of additional income.

2. Reviews inspiring confidence