2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Over time, several eComm types have evolved, the most known eComm types are the following:

Business-to-Business or (B-2-B).

Business-to-Consumer or (B-2-C).

Electronic Government (eGov).

Government-to-Business (G-2-G).

Government-to-Consumer or (G-2-C).

Government-to-Government or (G-2-G).

Consumer-to-Consumer or (C-2-C).

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Business-To-Business (B-2-B), is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses. It performs electronic commerce in all faces between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers.

All forecasts show that B-2-B revenue will exceed all other types of eComm revenues including Business-to-Consumers (B-2-C) revenue. In early 2000, the money volume of B-2-B exceeded that of B-2-C by 10 to 1.

Over the next five years, B-2-B had a compound annual growth of 41%. By 2004, B-2-B revenue worldwide was $7.29 trillion dollars (Gartner Group).

Most of eComm money comes from this type of business model. As mentioned earlier, B-2-B was the first eComm type to be used. Money in this type firstly came from paying for communication networks for data transfer.

Then companies started to have business between them (an example can be given by a car manufacturing company buying car tires) until a complete business community was built on this type.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Despite the existence of the Internet, large business companies usually depend on dedicated private networks which are separated from the Internet for their business activities.

The utilization of separate networks is usually occurs for two reasons, the first is because their high level of availability and serviceability and the second is their high level of security (they are hackers free zones).

Some of the most known private networks are:

SITA.

SWIFT.

CompuServ.

B-2-B eCommLifecycle.

B-2-B activities included:

Product search (eShopping) by using search engines.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT).

Electronic mail (email).

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Business-to-Consumer (B-2-C), in short is the retailing part of e-commerce on the Internet. Despite it is not the one of the largest volume of revenue, this model is the reason for the wide spread use of eComm.

This type of eComm concerns with selling those products that are easy to ship or easy to mail such as books, CDs, DVDs and many other things. This sector showed great increase over the last few years.

For example, the figures published the British Office for National Statistics 2008 (the available version) shows that Internet sales by UK businesses rose to 163bn in 2007, this is an increase of just over 30 per cent on the 2006 figure of 125.2bn.

The results of the 2007 e-commerce survey, which was based on businesses with 10 or more employees. Some key findings of a survey include that was conducted shows:

Internet sales represented 7.7 per cent of the total value of all sales by non-financial sector businesses in 2007.

Internet sales accounted for 39.3 per cent of the value of sales over all ICTs in 2007, up from 35.7 per cent in 2006.

30.4 per cent of the value of all purchases made by non-financial sector businesses were made over the Internet or other ICTs in 2007.

60.8 per cent of businesses used the Internet to interact with public authorities, such as government departments and local and regional authorities in 2007, an increase of nearly 18 per cent since 2006.

70.3 per cent of businesses had a website.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

An example of this type of eComm can be given by the famous site eBuy which is a secured method for buy small objects. It Web screen is shown down below.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

B-2-C lifecycle: B-2-C business activities are called is performed through what is called eComm life cycle, sometimes called buying and paying life cycle.This life cycle can be described in the following steps:

Step 1: eShopping.

From a computer connected to the internet, any potential customer, access the internet.

By using search engines, customers start searching for those products they want.

Search engines returns web pages from different sites containing information about those products they are searching for.

Customers browse through the returned web pages looking for best specifications with best prices.

Once they found what they want, they issue purchase order.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 2: Exchanging Shopping Information.

The selected company site displays customer information screen.

Companies usually require information about:

1. The product to sell.

2. The customer.

3. Payment Method.

4. Shipping address.

5. Shipment method.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 2.1: Filling Product Information Form.

A customer should fill a product information form, that form is displayed to the customer.

Product form contains information like:

1. Product number. This usually a product number given to each one of the company products.

2. Product name. This name is taken as it is from the company catalogue.

3. Unit price.

4. Number of units to buy.

5. Total cost

Usually at this stage, customers will be able to change their minds in regard to the product they want and the number of units to order.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 2.2: Filling Customer Information Form.

A customer information form is displayed to the customer.

Customer information form contains data such as:

1. Customer name.

2. Customer address.

3. Customer telephone.

4. Customer email.

5. Some optional customer information. This information might things like: Job; Salary, Nationality. Those information, customers can ignore them if they like. Those information are eventually used by the company for marketing purposes.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 2.3: Filling Payment Method Form.

A payment method form is displayed to the customer.

Payment method form contains data such as:

1. Credit card type (Visa, Master, Diners, American Express).

2. Credit card number.

3. Customer name as written on the credit card.

4. Expiration date.

5. Printed number. This random number that is written on the back of the card to be used for card verification.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 2.4: Filling Shipment Address Form.

A shipment address form is displayed to the customer.

Shipment address form contains data such as:

1. The address where products should be sent.

2. Company name, if there is any.

3. Receiver information. The one who receives the shipment if different from the buyer.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 2.5: Filling Shipment Method Form.

A shipment method form is displayed to the customer.

Shipment method form contains data such as:

1. The method to be used to send products. That varies from very fast such as "DHL, TNT, TPS..." to normal mail of shipment methods.

2. Minimum and maximum times to receive the products. Or in some cases a date could be given.

3. Notice that shipment methods affect the final product price.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 3: Closing the Deal - Paying and Shipping Products.

Once a customer entered all required information a purchase button appears.

If a customer presses purchase button, closing the deal process starts.

Closing the deal process goes through the following steps:

1. eComm engine goes to customer bank to ensure the ability of the payment.

2. If customer bank agrees, it goes to the seller bank to check its acceptance of the payment.

3. If the seller bank agrees, the eComm engine transfer the required money (electronically) from the buyer bank to the seller bank.

4. Once money is paid to the seller bank, a notification statement will be sent to the seller stores telling them that the payment is complete.

5. The seller stores ship the purchased products to the address mention in the shipment Form using shipment method mentioned in the shipment method form.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Step 4: Bank Accounts Adjustment.

Both customer bank and seller bank make all required account adjustments for both customer and seller.

A bank statement is sent to both transaction sides, customer and seller showing them the last account situation.

If they are part of electronic banking, an electronic statement will be sent electronically to their email box or displayed in their eBank account screen, otherwise it will be sent by normal mail.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

eGov as a concept relays on the idea that government agencies can use central Web sites to exchange information and do business with each other more efficiently which is called Government-to-Government (G-2-G).

That concept was extended to business areas to be called Government-to-Businesses (G-2-B) and with consumers to be called Government-to-Consumers (G-2-C).

The advantage of this concept stems from the ability of an eGov Web site to offer, both business and consumers, with services centralized in a single place. In that place all government applications that cover one or more levels of government could be found.

Government-2-Government (G-2-G)

This type of eComm is concerned with government sectors activities and inter-governmental work.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Government-2-Business (G-2-B)

Government-to-Business(G-2-B), in a way, is a variation of business-to-business (B-2-B), with replacing Businesses with government agencies.

From that concept a new field of businesses emerged, that business is called the Electronic Government or eGov. According to the Gartner Group, G-2-B grew from $1.5 billion in 2000 to $6.2 billion in 2005.

Under eGov, a B-2-G Web site can offer services to businesses with:

1. Tax forms for (city, state or province, country.

2. Send in filled-out forms and payment.

3. Update corporate information.

4. Request answers to specific questions.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Government-2-Consumer (G-2-C)

Government-2-Consumer (G-2-C) covers activities such as tax payment and payments of social insurance and many other services relevant to consumers such as issuing ID cards, car licenses and driving Licenses.

Government-2-Consumer (G-2-C) may also include e-recruitments services, in which consumers learn about the recruitments needs of agencies and agencies request proposal responses.

Both G-2-B and G-2-C are interconnected, as we can find that both G-2-B and G-2-C utilize applications such as e-procurements in which both businesses and consumers learn about the procurements needs of government agencies. Also, both G-2-B and G-2-C, may include the rental of online applications and databases designed especially for use by government agencies.

2.1 Selling On The Web: Revenue Models And...

Computer games were the first activity to create this type of eComm. Players were playing against machines, wining gadgets, clever players found themselves overwhelmed by the spoils of war games. So, they started to sell it creating a complete new type of eComm.