4 eServices and mServices
4.1 E-commerce / e-business

E-commerce or electronic commerce is a service covering online business activities related to products and services. Very simply said it is about selling and buying the goods realized over Internet, i.e. particular parties interact mostly in electronical way (than by direct physical exchanges). It also covers every business transaction conducted over ICT and resulting in transfer of ownerships and copyrights for using various goods and services [9].

Sometimes e-commerce is considered being the same as e-business. However, they are different and e-commerce constitutes a significant component of e-business. E-commerce realizes such business processes which directly touch the other parties (customers, goods suppliers and other external partners). These processes are such as sales, taking orders, customer service, marketing, delivery, purchasing of materials and supplies.

E-business represents a complex application of ICT into all parts and processes of the business world. All e-commerce activities are within e-business extended by internal business processes. These processes include inventory management, risk management, production and product development, finance, human resources and knowledge management.

Examples of e-commerce services:

E-commerce allows transforming local markets to national and international level. Sellers can easily and quickly gain much more customers, partners and suppliers at less cost. It also brings administrative costs reduction because a lot of information is not more processed in paper format but electronically. E-commerce can reduce company inventories (just-in-time production). It also decreases time between a capital investment and its return. Companies can save costs in using Internet instead of private networks. On the other hand, customers can perform business transactions anytime and anywhere (on the Earth). They have access to larger number and variety of products and services as well as sellers. By e-commerce customers can often buy products at lower prices with fast delivery. Electronic commerce supports faster competition resulting in various customer oriented benefits.

E-commerce can make use various sales scenarios:

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Fig. 6 Types of e-commerce