E-Business is BIG Business

Bought something from Amazon? Put a bid in on an eBay auction? Paid your bills online? These are all examples of e-commerce known as B2C, or business-to-consumer, Internet transactions. In the case of eBay, the transaction is going from consumer-to-consumer, or C2C. Most people who use the Internet have probably had some experience with e-commerce, but a much larger set of transactions are occurring across the Internet known as B2B, or business-to-business.  These types of transactions are larger in volume and in dollar amount. According to Statistic Canada, 75% of Internet transactions can be classified as B2B.

When organizations link their buying and selling systems, they are automating transactions between them and therefore shipments of raw materials can arrive at the manufacturer's plant just in time to be used in the production cycle. For example, if a tire manufacturer ships tires before they are needed by the car producers, the tires would have to be doubled handled and warehoused until the assembly line is ready for them. On the other hand, if the tire manufacturer and the car producer had a B2B link, facilitated by the Internet, the car producer's system could alert the tire manufacturer's system when the tires would be needed and therefore they could be shipped just in time to be placed on the cars at the right time during the assemble process.