E-Commerce From the Customer’s End, Essay Example

As an online customer at such e-commerce sites as Amazon.com, iTunes store, and, on occasion, eBay, I have certainly experienced e-commerce from the customer’s end and had to figure out the best ways in which to pay for things online. In general, I prefer to use my actual debit card for transactions on these major sites; I find it much the easiest and cheapest method, and I trust these companies to provide for the security of my information. For a number of C2C deals on certain sites, including Alibaba.com, I have resorted to PayPal or used an on-site escrow service.

I have also had some experience with this professionally, working for more than one company doing at least some of its business online. The companies I’ve worked for did both B2C and B2B e-commerce, so I’ve seen some of both. For B2C, the companies I’ve worked for used a pretty basic shopping cart program, like that described in Turban et al. (2010, p. 51). I’ve seen plenty of B2C transactions involving PayPal, credit card with digital signatures, and by installments; some transactions I’m familiar with involved payment plans, by installments (p. 51). The B2B transactions I’ve seen and have some familiarity with used pretty standard electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP) processes, mostly of the seller direct variety, though some were of the buyer direct variety (p. 498). They tended to be very long and time-consuming. I have seen some B2B transactions that used a consolidator, with my company registering as a seller or buyer to the consolidator’s EIPP and either sending or receiving invoice information (p. 498). In my experience, the benefits of a consolidator are tremendous: the transactions I’ve seen with a consolidator were much easier and much more hassle-free for all parties concerned (p. 498). Foreign currencies is an issue I know I’ll have to deal with in my e-business career, necessitating an application service provider (Thierauf & Hoctor, 2006, p. 103).