One of the most interesting and exciting aspects of the Internet evolution is the emergence of electronic business (e-commerce or e-business) as a viable alternative to more traditional methods of businesses being conducted today. E-commerce or e-business is defined as the process of using electronic technology to do business. B2B applications, B2C applications, portal development, etc. are all web development solutions that use e-commerce application.

Setting up and running an e-commerce application, especially one that processes a large number of transactions, ( B2B applications, B2C applications, portal development, etc.) requires technical, marketing and advertising expertise – something that a complete web solution providers like TCP are adept at.

There are many e-commerce applications today – B2B applications, B2C applications, portal development, etc. that redefines the very foundations of competitiveness in terms of information content and information delivery mechanisms.

Businesses to Consumer (B2C application) are e-commerce applications that provide an interface from businesses directly to their consumers. The most common example of a B2C application is a retail web site featuring the business's products or services that can be directly purchased by the consumer. The importance of B2C applications varies dramatically from company to company. For some companies, reaching consumers has been the critical aspect of their business. For others that run a chain of retail stores, a B2C application should be one of the most important pieces of their Internet strategy. B2C applications remain one of the top web application development.

Business-to-Business (B2B application) are e-commerce applications that forge new relationships between businesses. B2B applications provide new opportunities for businesses to leverage emerging e-commerce technologies to build their businesses. Examples of B2B applications include facilitating transactions for goods/services between companies, selling goods/services on the Internet to businesses, and supply chain integration. Legacy integration is a huge issue in B2B applications. If existing applications such as EDI or EFT are extended to help the B2B process, then the existing legacy applications can be a big help in moving forward. On the other hand, if two companies want to trade data, but have dramatically different legacy systems, legacy integration can be a challenge to overcome.

Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) is one of the emerging models of e-commerce. B2B2C is basically defined as using a B2B application to help support and rejuvenate companies attempting B2C. This is due to the fact that a B2B application has been an overwhelming financial success while B2C has not really lived up to its expectations. This model is poised to do well as it capitalizes the success of a B2B application and the potential demand of B2C. B2B provides a way for B2C companies to reduce costs and improve their B2C services. An example of B2B2C is developing products to help B2C companies increase profit by integrating inventory from the manufacturer to the distributor. An application that links one online catalog to another would be considered a B2B2C application as it capitalizes on both B2B applications and B2C applications.

Technologies for e-commerce

The e-commerce application industry comprises of a variety of products and services including: hardware components (routers, firewalls, digital switches, servers, and workstations); and a variety of software products. The software development technologies are being constantly upgraded to meet numerous fast-growing e-commerce challenges. As an e-commerce application basically means web application development, it has to be a three-tiered application.

The first tier of an e-commerce application is the user interface layer, which is mainly handled by client-side technologies for creating interactive, flashy Web pages and form data validation, such as HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, etc. For the second-tier, there are Web containers and scripting engines. The corresponding server-side technologies are both scripting languages and programming languages. They are Microsoft's Active Server Pages, which can accommodate Visual Basic and PERL scripts. Also both Java servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP) from Sun Microsystems Ltd. are becoming popular for server-side programming. The third-tier is the data layer, which comprises database management systems (DBMS) and data sources. There are a number of Database management systems available in the market like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Sybase, etc. There are Web servers such as Apache, Microsoft IIS etc. and Web containers for deploying Java servlets and JSP components.

There are specific e-commerce solutions and tools being developed and marketed. One such innovative product is called application server. There are two types of application servers: the first type is not based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification and the other one is J2EE-compliant. There are many companies developing Java-based application servers such as IBM's WebSphere, Borland's Inprise Application Server, BEA WebLogic, etc. Thus technologies and tools are being constantly brought out to facilitate companies and consumers to embrace the exciting and thrilling world of e-commerce and e-business. Finally the network elements (wireless, cable, and satellite networks, and Web-based telephony); and other transmission network services (the Internet and virtual private VANs) are necessary components.

Benefits of e-commerce

There are many benefits of e-commerce. An e-business can offer personalized service, high-quality customer service and improved supply chain management. E-commerce in a way is equivalent to automation and innovation of commercial activities. Automation brings a number of distinct advantages like lesser investment, freeing valuable labor from menial tasks, etc.

B2C applications are beneficial to existing retail stores and companies as this innovative application allows them to increase their customer base and hence their revenue. E-commerce helps them to reach entire demographics that they might not be able to reach in a physical or "bricks and mortar" store. A B2C application is highly beneficial for consumers as it gives them access to a world of stores instead of the stores in their neighborhood. A B2C application brings competitive trend giving consumers access to a wide variety of choices and lower prices. Some B2C web sites allow consumers to name their own prices for a variety of goods and services. Thus e-commerce brings forth such kinds of beneficial, consumers-oriented innovations.

B2C application allows companies to extend their existing services to consumers as well. B2C applications open up a new world for companies that are not well known to the outside world before.

A B2B application is extremely beneficial to businesses because of its potential to drastically reduce the cost. By making communication easier and faster, using new e-commerce technologies and standards, the inventory moves quickly, lowering overheads. Further, B2B applications help automate communication between companies. This, apart from streamlining the process, helps reduce the potential for errors and helps provide better goods and services.

B2B2C applications help B2C companies to raise profits. By leveraging the benefits of B2B applications to streamline and improve business, B2C companies have the ability to make more money by growing revenue and cutting unnecessary costs. Also a company that is successful in one area of e-commerce can capitalize on this success and knowledge gathered to other areas of their e-commerce plan.

C2C and C2B2C applications allow consumers to interact themselves. This helps businesses to have a fairly easy revenue stream. Also, consumers have access to an entirely new way of purchasing and selling goods and services.