Most people use the terms e-business and e-commerce interchangeably as they mistake these two separate terms to mean the same thing: online businesses. Although e-business and e-commerce are generally similar, it is important that we note the difference between these two distinct concepts. 
 

Formal definitions for both terms:

E-commerce: “The use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and individuals.”* 

E-business: “The transformation of an organization’s processes to deliver additional customer value through the application of technologies, philosophies and computing paradigm of the new Internet economy.”*

 *As cited in: http://www.apdip.net/publications/iespprimers/eprimer-ecom.pdf 

In e-commerce, information and communications technology (ICT) is used in business-to-consumer transactions, inter-business transactions, and inter-organizational transactions. Conversely, in e-business, ICT is used to enhance one’s business and is inclusive of all processes that an organization conducts over a computer-mediated network.  

Popular examples of e-businesses include eBay and Amazon. 

These two brand names are internet-only businesses; they are purely web based and do not have brick-and-mortar stores. Some popular brand names have both online stores and brick-and-mortar stores; for instance, Barnes & Noble. However, Amazon’s shares were up 145% in the year 2003, while Barnes & Noble’s shares were up only 49% in the same year. Does this indicate that internet-only businesses are capable of capturing a large portion of the market share from traditional brick-and-mortar businesses? 

In my opinion, online stores and brick-and-mortar stores cater largely to two different types of consumers. Consumers who value convenience, lower costs, and a larger variety typically choose to purchase online while consumers who enjoy the brand experience of stepping into a store, ‘feeling’ the product before purchasing, and receiving their purchase immediately prefer to shop in brick-and-mortar stores. 

Having been both an online shopper and a traditional shopper for years, I personally feel that both types of stores have their advantages and disadvantages. I enjoy shopping from both online shops and physical stores. For instance, I purchase my clothing items from online stores often as they are generally cheaper and have a wider selection as compared to the boutiques in Singapore; however, the sizings of clothing items vary with each purchase. Therefore, I refrain from purchasing clothing items from internet-only stores as I am unfamiliar with their sizing for clothes. As for miscellaneous items like books, I tend to purchase them from Amazon.com as they stock books that are not available in Singapore and are also generally cheaper because the website lists differences in prices for the same item sold by different people. 

Over recent years, there has been an increasing trend of young entrepreneurs establishing e-businesses in Singapore, and this in the form of establishing web stores that sell clothing and accessories. These online stores are coined ‘blogshops’ as they were first established through the use of blogging domains such as livejournal and blogspot; but, as these e-businesses gained popularity, its owners have started to purchase their own domains. 

Such web stores are becoming extremely popular in Singapore as many are drawn to the allure of low start-up costs and a high profit margin. The cost required to start an online store is low; however, as the market is becoming increasingly saturated, the barriers to entry have increased due to heavy competition. As such, many blogshops do not survive past the initial few months. The few blogshop pioneers dominate the market amongst Singapore shoppers as they had garnered loyal supporters throughout out the years and have had the time and resources to establish their brand in the local and perhaps, international internet community of shoppers.

Such blogshops and new online stores established by young entrepreneurs typically employ the use of social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, to market their brand and products. For instance, they establish Twitter accounts for their consumers to ‘follow’ so that they would be updated of the launch of new products and other information about the store.

Such online shops also set up Facebook pages as a means of displaying information and to also, garner support virally. 

In conclusion, there are as many disadvantages as there are advantages to online shopping. Advantages include cheaper prices and a wider selection, and disadvantages include defects in products, complicated return policies, and the risk of leaking secure information such as one’s credit card details and home address over the internet; therefore, even with the growing number of online shops, I feel that e-businesses will never fully replace traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.