E-commerce is simply about two or more parties exchanging information electronically for money.

The primary objective of any kind of E-commerce activity is just business. E-Commerce is all about business, where you use Electronic data exchange to perform a business activity or transaction.

Primarily only big businesses and banks have been involved in electronic transactions. For example, the need to support credit card merchant services was primarily supported by ATM machines, which included exchange of information of account details between customers, offices and business organizations. As time went by, Internet gained popularity. This resulted in new business models, which was within the reach of small and medium sized organizations. People found a number of uses for electronic data exchange when it came within easy reach.

The traditional method of communication for large companies, who pioneered information exchange, is a solution known as EDI ( Electronic Data Interchange). However these systems were very expensive.

The Advent of Internet and XML changed the usage of costly systems like EDI for Electronic information exchange. The trend towards XML is expected to expand and diversify as more applications of available technologies are employed to gain advantage in the age of electronic information.

In addition to e-commerce, one of the major emerging trends is to share an increasing amount and variety of other enterprise and organizational information, an area that is currently being defined and implemented alongside the new e-commerce applications. This is termed as eBusiness.

There are basically three models for E-Commerce namely :-

	Selling direct to customers, which is widely called as B2C where the business directly interacts with the ultimate consumers.
	Business to business transactions or B2B, where businesses directly transact with other business organizations.
	Information sharing and content syndication, which involves making information, which would be useful in business transaction to be made available.

Traditionally, people used to go to the place of business for business transaction. Now with the advent of Internet this trend has changed to such an extent that the customer can easily shop in the comfort of his residence or from anywhere in the world. This eliminates middlemen in the business thereby making the products cheaper to the consumers and making it more profitable for the business organizations.

B2C is the most common E-Commerce model. This is the one that many people think of first when we talk about e-commerce. Typical examples are sites like Amazon.com and Fabmart.com.

In this model, we can directly go to the web site of the business organization using a standard web browser. The web site would display all the products of the business organization and we can even buy these products using our credit cards over the internet, which could be later delivered to our doors.

The B2C model has not only helped big businesses, it has also offered a lifeline to many small companies that make or sell specialist products to a small potential market. These small companies use the internet as direct sales channel. B2C is a process of traditional manufacturers hawking their wares directly to potential consumers online, bypassing the middleman. This eventually boosts up the profits of such organizations.

Initially, organizations used to communicate through middlemen for placing orders for trading purposes. This increased not only the costs but also the delivery time. The Internet has now helped the organizations working together in business for faster delivery and quick placing of orders thereby eliminating middlemen and thus, reducing time.

Business to Business (B2B) model is similar to selling direct to the public. However, the transactions involved in such businesses are targeted at trading partners or business organizations. The ultimate consumer of the product does not come into view at all in this model.

The businesses, which are involved in B2B transactions, would not be using their credit cards for transactions. Instead, they are more likely to have accounts with their suppliers, and their transactions often take place using predefined, shared languages.

The major advantage of this model is that there is often less paperwork to be processed, thus orders are fulfilled quicker. Some processed can even be automated in line with stock levels, which facilitates just-in-time ordering, thereby removing the need for someone to place each order manually. When automated processes take care of the day-to-day orders, fulfillment managers can focus on exceptions to the process.

The last model is the Information sharing model. This may be the summary of financial data that is sent from the branch office to the headquarters. This supply chain metaphor can be applied to services in the same way as with physical goods.

The automation of information sharing interchange will surely present distinct advantages in the future in terms of competition as aggressive organizations move to developing partnerships and creating new business models through information sharing. Information sharing will also allow infomediaries or brokers to provide reintermediation services by gathering information from multiple suppliers on capability, pricing, availability or other metrics, such as online auctions.