Chapter 3, E-commerce Infrastructure: The Internet, Web, and Mobile Platform

This chapter discussed the history of the Internet, as well as web 2.0 and m-commerce.

I find mobile platform commerce to be particularly interesting to me because of its ease of use (if the app is decent) and the fact that they will usually have an existing platform elsewhere. For example, eBay/PayPal has both their main desktop site and a mobile app that you can still use for most of the same features, albeit some slight alterations for mobile compatibility.

Mobile commerce also comes in a vast array of diversity. There are countless apps for all kinds of businesses and services out there, all growing in the vast marketspace of today. Even Blogger has its own app that you can make blog posts from, although I could not create a new blog from the app itself disappointingly enough (see decent apps.)

Chapter 2, E-Commerce Business Models and Concepts

This chapter discussed the aspects of B2B and B2C business models and the business strategies involved with each one. I chose to focus on the transaction-fee business model because eBay, the business solution that my business uses primarily for sales is based upon it.

eBay is the middleman between e-business' that have a product marketable on eBay, and the consumers that want an easy place to buy products that are relatively affordable (my experience with eBay is that consumers go on their for 'cheap deals'.)



This old but interesting article talks about eBay in China going towards a 'no transaction fee' business model after fierce competition with another transaction fee-less site called Taobao. Taobao accounted for 57% of the total volume of online auctions in China, while eBay struggled to make it to just over 34%.

A little bit of eBay history and the eBay business model.

Chapter 1, E-Commerce: The Revolution Is Just Beginning

Chapter 1 of the text gives a brief talk about the features and significance of E-commerce in the marketplace and introduces to us the many types of E-commerce, such as B2B, C2C, and social E-commerce (something I haven't heard much about.)

The business where I am employed is successful mainly through the use of the E-commerce website eBay (C2C), where we pay very little to be in a vast "marketspace." What goes along with this is the fact that it is a market that can be accessed virtually anywhere at any time through any number of technological devices; it is this ubiquity that will also reduce the costs for not only us but for customers transactions. Consider the gas you use going to the store, even the time you spend; however with E-commerce sites you don't even have to get out of bed if you choose to. Even though eBay is considered a consumer-to-consumer type of e-commerce, I personally see it as a combination of B2B, B2C, and C2C. This is because on eBay we deal with other businesses on eBay, as well as selling as a business directly to the consumer, and we can purchase items to re-sell from other consumers.

eBay overhauls seller fees in an attempt to steal customers from Amazon.

eBay uses B2B strategy with Dell Data Centers to lower transaction costs.