E-procurement E-procurement is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer purchase and sale of supplies and services through the Internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as Electronic Data Interchange and Enterprise Resource Planning.business-to-businessbusiness-to-consumersupplies servicesInternetElectronic Data InterchangeEnterprise Resource Planning E-procurement Web sites allow qualified and registered users to look for buyers or sellers of goods and services. Depending on the approach, buyers or sellers may specify costs or invite bids. Transactions can be initiated and completed.bids E-procurement software may make it possible to automate some buying and selling. Companies participating expect to be able to control parts inventories more effectively, reduce purchasing agent overhead, and improve.overhead E-procurement is expected to be integrated with the trend toward computerized supply chain management.supply chain management Advantages include getting the right product, from the right supplier, at the right time, for the right price and the right quantity. In reality e-procurement has the advantage of taking supply chain management to the next level, providing real time information to the vendor as to the status of a customer's needs. A major disadvantage to this type of agreement could be that the vendor has the power to take advantage of the customer by knowing more information about the customer than they would have if the customer was in a normal supply chain management structure.

eCommerce Electronic commerce, commonly known as e- commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networksproductsservicescomputer networks Electronic commerce that is conducted between businesses is referred to as Business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties (e.g. commodity exchange) or limited to specific, pre-qualified participants (private electronic market).Business-to-business commodity exchangeprivate electronic market Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactionse-business

ebXML Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language is a family of XML based standards sponsored by OASIS and UN/CEFACT whose mission is to provide an open, XML-based infrastructure that enables the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure, and consistent manner by all trading partners.XMLOASIS UN/CEFACTelectronic business

benefits E-commerce: The benefits of Ecommerce: Ecommerce allows people to carry out businesses without the barriers of time or distance. One can log on to the Internet at any point of time, be it day or night and purchase or sell anything one desires at a single click of the mouse. The direct cost-of-sale for an order taken from a web site is lower than through traditional means (retail, paper based), as there is no human interaction during the on-line electronic purchase order process. Also, electronic selling virtually eliminates processing errors, as well as being faster and more convenient for the visitor. Ecommerce is ideal for niche products. Customers for such products are usually few. But in the vast market place i.e. the Internet, even niche products could generate viable volumes. Another important benefit of Ecommerce is that it is the cheapest means of doing business. The day-to-day pressures of the marketplace have played their part in reducing the opportunities for companies to invest in improving their competitive position. A mature market, increased competitions have all reduced the amount of money available to invest. If the selling price cannot be increased and the manufactured cost cannot be decreased then the difference can be in the way the business is carried out. Ecommerce has provided the solution by decimating the costs, which are incurred. From the buyer’s perspective also ecommerce offers a lot of tangible advantages. –Reduction in buyer’s sorting out time. –Better buyer descisions –Less time is spent in resolving invoice and order discrepancies. –Increased opportunities for buying alternative products. The strategic benefit of making a business ‘ecommerce enabled’, is that it helps reduce the delivery time, labour cost and the cost incurred in the following areas: –Document preparation –Error detection and correction –Reconciliation –Mail preparation –Telephone calling –Data entry –Overtime –Supervision expenses Operational benefits of e commerce include reducing both the time and personnel required to complete business processes, and reducing strain on other resources. It’s because of all these advantages that one can harness the power of ecommerce and convert a business to ebusiness by using powerful turnkey ecommerce solutions made available by ebusiness solution providers.ecommerce solutions