E-commerce

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Electronic commerce (e-commerce) describes the business transaction using technological infrastructures like the internet or other telecommunication technology (Jędrzejczak-Gas, Barska and Siničáková, 2019, p. 210). This term includes not only the buying and selling of goods and services itself but also all processes connected to those transactions. Thus, the digital payment process and the digital exchange of data are also part of e-commerce (Nescott, 2011, p. VII).

Development of e-commerce

In 1997 the term e-commerce was first mentioned by IBM (Jędrzejczak-Gas, Barska and Siničáková, 2019, p. 210). As the barriers to accessing the internet lowered and the general public was able to use the internet and other telecommunication technologies, e-commerce experienced its boom. The number of online shops as well as the number of customers shopping online increased year by year. Even today, the e-commerce sector is still growing steadily. The increase in internet speed and the expanding global spread of the internet are driving factors of e-commerce. However, it should be noted that the development of e-commerce varies not only from continent to continent but also from country to country (Gregor and Kalińska-Kula, 2020, pp. 184–186). During the Covid-19 pandemic, the e-commerce sector experienced another strong increase. Due to lockdowns in many countries, consumption via online shops increased strongly and this trend is still very much in evidence (Sudhakaran, 2022, p. 81).

E-commerce categories

There are various categories into which e-commerce can be divided:

• Business to Business (B2B): transactions between two companies; this is the fastest-growing e-commerce sector
• Business to Consumer (B2C): transactions between a company and the consumer; a traditional buyer-seller combination
• Consumer to Business (C2B): transactions between a company and a consumer but the consumer takes the role of the seller and the company the role of the buyer
• Consumer to Consumer(C2C): transactions between two customers

If state administration is also considered, the following categories can be added:

• Business to Government (B2G) or Business to Administration (B2A): transactions between a party from the business sector and a representative from the public sector
• Government to Business (G2B): transactions between a public office and a company
• Government to Consumer(G2C): transactions with a flow from the public sector to a consumer
• Consumer to Government (C2G): transactions involving a consumer and a public sector body
• Government to Government (G2G): transaction where two parties of the public sector are involved

It is important to note that especially in G2B, G2C, and G2G sectors the transactions often contain the flow of administrative information, customer documents, and statistics. Therefore, it does not necessarily have to be a purchase or sale of goods or services (Jędrzejczak-Gas, Barska and Siničáková, 2019, pp. 210–211).