Meaning of EC

EC is an abbreviation for “Electric Commerce”, which means “electronic commerce” in Japanese. Also known as “e-commerce,” it refers to buying, selling, and making payments through networks such as the Internet.

E-commerce has lower fixed costs than traditional store-based and face-to-face business models, and is extremely convenient from a consumer’s perspective, so the number of users is rapidly increasing with the spread of the Internet.

In particular, the spread of infectious diseases that began in earnest in April 2020 has increased consumer demand for staying home, and e-commerce, which allows shopping without leaving the house, has rapidly become popular.

For businesses, the benefits of being able to sell to consumers without worrying about the consumer’s area of residence or business hours are enormous.

As a measure to increase sales, businesses that used to conduct business in stores or face-to-face are increasingly entering e-commerce, and this number is expected to continue to increase.

Classification of EC

EC is broadly classified into the following four types.

BtoB

(Business to Business): Transactions between companies. When purchasing raw materials, all transactions are completed online without any face-to-face business negotiations.

BtoC (Business to Consumer): Transactions between companies and consumers. Transactions are conducted in a variety of ways, including transactions using a company’s own e-commerce site and transactions via mall-type e-commerce such as Amazon and Rakuten.

CtoC (Consumer to Consumer): Transactions between consumers. In addition to Mercari and other sites, Yahoo! Auctions, which have an auction-type format, also fall under CtoC e-commerce.

DtoC (Direct to Consumer): A transaction format in which a company that previously sold wholesale to other companies sells directly to end consumers. In addition to realizing speedy commercial transactions, it eliminates the margins that would otherwise occur when involving retailers, allowing transactions to be carried out on terms that are good for both parties.

According to a survey by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, all of the e-commerce markets mentioned above continue to show high growth rates compared to the previous year.

With the spread of smartphones and the continued development of convenient e-commerce construction systems for businesses, the e-commerce market is expected to continue expanding.

Many attempts have been made to improve the convenience of e-commerce, such as delivery experiments using drones and efforts to popularize delivery services, and consumers are also becoming more active in using e-commerce. It will be.

Classification of EC

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