Terminiology Of E-Commerce

Auction: competitive process by which a seller solicits consecutive bids from the buyer or a buyer solicits bids from sellers.

Avatars: animated computer character that exhibit human like movements and behaviors.

Back End: the actives that support online order fulfillment, inventory management, purchasing from suppliers, payment processing, packaging, and delivery.

Bartering Exchange- a marketplace in which an intermediary arranges barter transaction.

Blog- a personal Web site that is open to the public to read and interacts with dedicated to specific topics or issues.

Buy-side e-marketplace - a private e-marketplace in which one company makes purchases from invited suppliers.

Desktop search- Search tools that search the contents of a user's or organizations computer files, rather than searching the Internet. The emphasis is on finding all the information that is available on the user's PC, including the Web browser histories-mail archives, and word processes documents, as well as in all internal files and database.

Digital Products- Goods that can be transformed to digital format and delivered over the Internet.

Disintermediation- Elimination of intermediaries between sellers and buyers.

Double Auction- an auction in which multiple buyer and their bidding price are matched with multiple sellers and their asking prices, considering the quantities on both sides.

Dynamic Pricing- Prices that change based on supply and demand relationships at any given time.

E-Batering (electronic bartering)- bartering conducted online, usually in bartering exchange.

E-Distributor- an e-commerce intermediary that connects manufactures with business buyers (customer) by aggregating the catalogs of many manufactures in one place the intermediary's Websites.

E-Auctions -- auctions conducted online.

E-catalogs-- the presentation of product information in an electronic form; the backbone of most e-selling sales.

electronic shopping cart -- an order-processing technology that allows customers to accumulate items they wish to buy while they continue to shop.

e-mail (online mail) - an online shopping center where many online stores are located.

folksonomy- the practice and method of collaboratively creating, classifying, and managing tag to annotate and categorize content. (Collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing and social tagging).

enterprise search-  the practice of identifying and enabling specific content across the enterprise to be indexed, searched, and displayed to authorized users.


Forward Auction- an auction in which a seller entertains bids from buyers. Bidders increase price sequentially.

Inform diary--electronic intermediaries that provide and/or control information flow in cyberspace, often aggregating information through the website.

micro blogging- a form of blogging that allows users to write messages (usually up to 140 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by any or by restricted groups that can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, MP3 or just on the Web.

name your own price model- an auction in which a would-be-buyer specifies the price (and other terms) he or she is willing to pay and willing be sell. It is a Consumer-to-Business (C2B) model that was pioneered by Priceline.com

reverse auction- (bidding or tendering system) - Auction in which the buyer places an item for bid (tender) on a request for quote (Request for quote) system, potential suppliers bid on the job with the reducing sequentially, and the lowest bid wins.

sell-side-e-marketplace-- a web based marketplace in which one company sells to many business buyers from e-catalogs or auctions, frequently over an extranet.

search engine- a computer program that can access data-bases of Internet resources, search for specific information or key words, and report the results.

social bookmarking- web service for sharing Internet bookmarks. the sites are popular way to store, classify and search links through the practice of folksonomy techniques on the Internet and intranets.

tags- a nonhierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, digital image, video clip, or any computer document).

tweets- text based posts up to 140 characters in length posted to twitter.

twitter- a free micro blogging service that allows it's users to send and read others users updates.

vlog-- (video blog) a blog with video content.

voice portal- a website with an audio interface that can be accessed through a telephone call.

web portal- a single point of access through a web browser to critical business information located inside and outside an organization.

web stores- a single company's website where products or services are sold and usually has an online shopping cart associated with it. many web stores target a specific industry and find their own unique corner of the market.

wiki- a blog that allows everyone to participate as a peer: anyone may add, delete or change.