Although there are many definitions and explanations of e-commerce, the following definition provides a clear distinction.
• Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is defined to be the process of businesses trading with other businesses and the formulation of internal processes using electronic links.
• Electronic business, or e-business, is a term often used interchangeably with e-commerce, but is more concerned with the transformation of key business processes through the use of internet technologies.
• Interaction between communication systems, data management systems and security, which because of them exchange commercial information in relation to the sale products or services, will be available, so the definition, the main components of electronic commerce are: communication systems, data management systems and security.
E-Commerce is the exchange of goods and services between (usually) independent organizations and/or persons supported by a comprehensive usage of powerful ICT systems and a globally standardized network infrastructure.
For this purpose the business partners have to couple their business processes and their ICT systems. These systems have to work together temporarily and seamlessly and have to share, exchange and process data during the whole business process and across the boundaries of the cooperating organizations.
Data security and data privacy as well as the compliance with laws and other policies and procedures have, of course, to be guaranteed.
