E-commerce vs Traditional commerce

What is E-commerce?

The definition of E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet. These business transactions occur either as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer, or consumer-to-business. 

4 Example Type of Business

Business-to-business -(B2B)

Business-to-business (B2B)  e-commerce of products, services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers. Examples include online directories and product and supply exchange websites that allow businesses to search for products, services, and information and to initiate transactions through e-procurement interfaces.

Business-to-consumer (B2C)

Business-to-consumer (B2C) is the retail part of e-commerce on the internet. It is when businesses sell products, services, or information directly to consumers. The term was popular during the late 1990s when online retailers and sellers of goods were a novelty.

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C)

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) is a type of e-commerce in which consumers trade products, services, and information with each other online. These transactions are generally conducted through a third party that provides an online platform on which the transactions are carried out.

Consumer-to-business (C2B)

Consumer-to-business (C2B) is a type of e-commerce in which consumers make their products and services available online for companies to bid on and purchase. This is the opposite of the traditional commerce model of B2C.

What is Traditional commerce?

The definition of traditional commerce refers to the commercial transactions or exchange of information, buying or selling product/services from person to person without the use of the internet which is an older method of business style and comes under traditional business

Which is better? E-commerce or traditional commerce?

Well, both of them have pros and cons. First, we’ll look at E-commerce.

E-commerce

Pros :

• E-commerce is better if you plan to buy items that are very far places because of how rare it is or there’s none at your nearby places.
• You can check the price and compare it to other sellers’ prices.
• You can also check discounted product prices on the online marketplace.
• More variety.
• Less expensive, because they dont need to pay like physical store fee.

Cons :

• Security and credit card fraud are also huge risks when dealing with online shopping.
• Missmatch product description or pictures.
• Will the product come safely to the buyer’s hand after the long period of time of being shipping.
• You need to wait for your items to arrive which is frustrated.

Traditional commerce

Pros :

• Consumers can test the product before purchase.
• It helps a person feel better about the environment they are in.
• Rip-off merchants can be caught easier than scammers
• People without internet can visit stores for items.
• Concumer can get item right after they payment.
• If goods is broken, you can easily get replacement by return back the goods with the recently receipt easily.

Cons :

• Consumers have to travel a certain distance for the product.
• Not all store and businesses have the exact item for the customer.
• Store doesn’t open 24 hours a day.
• It’s sometime hard to find specific goods.
• Can’t compare the same brand goods.

So at the end of the day, there’s no who’s better because each of them is cover each other weaknesses. It just depends on what type of goods you are planning to buy and when you want to use them.

Sources :

https://sites.google.com/site/theaspectsofecommerce/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-traditional-selling

https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/e-commerce#:~:text=E%2Dcommerce%20(electronic%20commerce),or%20consumer%2Dto%2Dbusiness.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-traditional-commerce-and-e-commerce/