People always talk about e-business and e-commerce as if they are the same thing.
People often think that they mean the same thing, but they don’t.
So why is it important to be able to tell them apart?
Here are a few of them:
- Use the right words in your contracts to protect yourself legally.
- To do research, you need to use the right words.
- If you use the right words, you and the people you talk to will understand each other better.
- I’m going to explain what makes e-commerce and e-business different.
We will also give you examples of each so you can better tell if a business is an e-commerce or an e-business.
This is what sets an E-Business apart from an E-Commerce business.
An online store is where an E-Commerce business sells its goods. E-business is a general term for doing business online, where people can sell anything to make money.
What E-commerce and E-Business Mean
E-business means doing business online.
It’s any business that makes money through the internet. On the other hand, “e-commerce” stands for “electronic commerce.”
It’s a type of business in which people buy and sell goods or services.
E-commerce is a small part of e-business, which is anything that can be done online to make money.
This means that an online gift shop is both an e-business and an e-commerce business, and that an online payment system is an e-business but not e-commerce.
E-commerce examples
In e-commerce, a seller puts up a product, and a buyer clicks on it, then pays for it.
E-commerce is what you do when you sell things on eBay, Amazon, or AliExpress.
A dropshipping store is an example of an e-commerce business.
This article will help you start a drop-shipping store if you want to know how.
Someone uploads a product there, and then someone from somewhere else in the world finds it and buys it.
Let’s look more closely at this.
Things you can see
An e-commerce store is any business that sells things you can touch. Physical goods are things like glasses, pillows, furniture, ballpoint pens, toys, and more that you buy and have shipped to you.
E-commerce is buying and selling things online. This can be done on any website where you can sign up and list your products for sale. Here are a few examples to help you get a better idea.
eBay
This is an online market that was made so that people could sell used items. Most of what was sold here were things that the owners no longer wanted or needed.
But eBay has also turned into a place where you can set up your own store and sell brand-new items.
You can sell almost anything, but you can’t sell illegal things like guns, pornography, drugs, and other things.
Amazon
Amazon started out as an online bookstore where people could buy and sell physical books and eBooks. After a long time, it has turned into an online business where people can sign up, post their products, and make money.
Amazon is the largest online shopping site in the world right now.
Shopify
Shopify is a company that helps you set up your own store. You can set up an online store here. It lets people drag and drop their products, upload pictures of them, and write about them.
It also has great free themes that make it easy to start selling things right away.
The main difference between Shopify and e-commerce markets is that with Shopify, you are in charge.
You own the website, and you don’t have to pay huge fees like you do on Amazon or eBay when you sell something.
You can change the color, the content, the categories, and just about anything else on your website. It’s a wonderful place to sell things.
Web services
You can also buy online services through e-commerce sites.
There are places like freelance markets where you can buy any kind of work that can be done from somewhere else.
Most of the time, you pay the worker by the hour. But there are also many times when you pay by the project instead of by the hour.
Here are some things you can buy that are services.
- Writing for the web
- Bookkeeping
- Data entry
- Getting leads
- The visual arts
- Scriptwriting
- Video editing
- Making and designing web pages
You can buy online any service that doesn’t need to be done in person. But there are also e-commerce sites where you can buy things that you can hold in your hands.
One example is the website Craigslist, where you can hire a plumber. This plumber will come to your house, do the work, and then you will pay him.
How does this work, then?
Most of the time, both the buyer and the seller are protected. The way it works is like buying a physical item. It goes like this:
- The service is posted on the e-commerce platform by the seller.
- The buyer buys it.
- The site owner or a financial institution keeps the money.
- Seller does the job and sends the order (written content or bookkeeping is done with MS Word or Excel; there are many ways to send these services digitally).
- The buyer looks over the paper or work.
- When the buyer clicks “Accept,” the system or bank sends the money to the seller.
Fiverr is an example of an online store where you can buy a service. It works everywhere, and you can buy the services we’ve already talked about.
E-business examples
Since e-business means anything that makes money online, it can mean anything from e-payments to e-banking and a lot more.
Let’s look at a few online businesses.
e-Payments
This means that payments are made online. One good example is PayPal, which lets you send and receive money from anyone in the world without going to a physical bank.
The person who gets the money has to pay a small fee to PayPal.
Blogging
A website that is all about writing is called a blog.
Bloggers can make money in many different ways, like by getting paid to review a product, selling their own eBooks, putting up ads, or offering consulting services.
WordPress is the most popular platform for running a blog.
YouTube
Bloggers and YouTubers are both people who make content. But instead, they make videos.
The more people who subscribe to you on YouTube, the more money you can make from the ads that play while your videos are being watched.
People who make YouTube videos also get paid by companies to review their products.
Summary
E-business is any online business that makes money, and e-commerce is any business that involves buying and selling.
Now that you know the difference, you can decide for yourself which way to make money is best for you.
You can use drop shipping to sell things online, or you can be an influencer and get paid for how popular you are.