Module 9 Summary
In Chapter 9 the text introduces E-commerce. E-commerce is simply defined as the buying and selling of products or services online. This is broken down into four components. These are Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Business (C2C), and Consumer to Consumer (C2C). These titles describe the business relationship, for example a C2C e-commerce exchange is one private consumer selling to another private consumer. I have been a party in most of these types of e-commerce. I have purchased and sold goods through C2C sites like ebay. I have been a consumer on B2C sites like amazon. I have managed a print shop which required me to order through online B2B vendor platforms.
E-commerce brings forward 2 main concerns, security and privacy. Consumers must be wary of who is receiving their sensitive information, like banking and address information. Businesses can also record users' activity on their sites in order to apply targeted marketing strategies. One strategy to enhance user security is to use a digital wallet. These encrypted softwares allow users to securely and easily make purchases on most e-commerce platforms. I do not have much experience using digital wallets. I was not comfortable saving payment information on an application such as IPay. However, this chapter shows that this tech is likely more secure than entering payment information into private retailers payment fields.