What is e-commerce? How does it differ from older more traditional “brick-and-mortar” commerce?

Electronic commerce is the use of information technology to communicate with all those that are involved with a business’s vitality.

For example, e-commerce for a school may be the delivery of course options via internal online catalog vs. online portals for company shareholders to buy and sell – although different, both examples of e-commerce. More traditional “brick-and-mortar” commerce would be businesses that aren’t using information technology to communicate with customers/producers but instead rely face-to-face physical communication, and community marketing. Maybe their product offerings and way they do business are also low on the information technology side, or they wouldn’t have a huge increase of business by being online.

What is disintermediation? Who does it benefit and why?

Disintermediation often benefits the consumer – generally seeking more options as a general public, or the producer – looking for ways to cut costs and increase revenue. Disintermediation is the removal of some portions of a supply chain, so it’s often “middlemen” that are affected most – any business part of the supply chain process that is able to be “skipped” or disintermediated.

Sometimes disintermediation is often thought of as an all-or-nothing game, but as technology favors consumers into the future, disintermediation more commonly takes shape as a means by which more options open up vs. a certain supply chain shutting down entirely.

A good example of disintermediation would be investing apps like Robinhood that have removed the need for a traditional stock brokerage to mediate buying and selling and instead replaced with their commission-free brokerage services. Traditional stock purchasing options still exist, but this secondary channel of e-commerce in the stock world is also now available to consumers due to disintermediation.

What are three examples of businesses that might not need an internet presence and primarily function as a “brick-and-mortar” stores?

In today’s world it seems it’s becoming ever-harder to find a business that doesn’t need to do business online – due to the internet being so pivotal in also helping to find brick-and-mortar businesses physically as a consumer via maps and directions, communicating with customers, and more.

Stores that don’t need to rely heavily on the internet to do business would be anything that delivers their product locally vs. sells online and ships (low information intensity example), or ROI from e-commerce may not be worth the gain in income. Local gas stations/convenience stores, dry cleaners, and farmers come to mind. They may all benefit from a presence online to drive customer growth – but they could also all exist operationally without the use of an internet presence, just by serving customers from their physical storefronts and using traditional marketing methods only.

Even with these examples, I’m sure gas stations are still using forms of e-commerce to make oil/gas refilling purchases themselves as a B2B consumer, etc…so you start to see how far-reaching e-commerce has become in all aspects of doing business.

What are three examples of businesses that function primarily as e-commerce businesses and do not have “brick-and-mortar” stores?

Anything in the retail space comes to mind first as the types of business that does well solely as an online e-commerce business without a “brick-and-mortar” store.

Clothing brands, bookstores shipping books and offering ebook downloads, and many education products and organizations – are all examples of businesses that often exist primarily as businesses online.

What are three specific examples of businesses that have “brick-and-mortar” stores as well as e-commerce online stores?

Although grocery stores can exist locally without the use of the internet retail or e-commerce – many large grocery chains, and even smaller grocery stores are seeing the benefit of blending both “brick-and-mortar” stores as well as e-commerce. Whole Foods, Safeway, Wal-Mart – all offering the ability to shop in-store or online.

Lots of restaurants are also seeing how opening an online storefront or availability on a food service delivery app, allows them to tap into e-commerce to drive sales by offering more options to customers – “eat our same delicious food in the beautiful atmosphere of our restaurant OR delivered to the comfort of your very own home. In fact, enjoy our food multiple times a week if you can!”

Another example of businesses that are doing well combining “brick-and-mortar” and e-commerce offerings are movie theaters. They allow you to purchase tickets in-person at the box office, or often they allow you to reserve a seat in advance. This again helps to give consumers options – who have different needs, tastes, personalities and consumer habits.