Information & Communication Technology Arena

In today’s fast developing technological world, businesses are usually transacted online. These online transactions are called m-commerce and e-commerce. E-commerce is a term that has been around for a long time already. This term is about conducting business online, and everybody knows about that. However, with the rise of m-commerce, certain confusions also rose. Both of them are about transacting business online, but there is still a significant difference between the two. To clear these confusions, it is best to define and differentiate these terms.

The meaning of commerce means, conducting a business transaction, whether it is promotional or selling products, goods, and services. The “m” in the term m-commerce means mobile. M-commerce then, is a type of business transaction done on your mobile phone; providing your mobile phone has Internet access. Lately, phones have Internet access, like 4G, which makes these transactions more accessible. With the rise of phones with Internet access, this kind of business transaction has become very popular. M-commerce has become a booming business lately.

With the use of m-commerce, there are plenty of products and promotional items that can finally be transacted. Movie tickets can be bought via your phone with Internet access. Not only that, you can also avail coupons, loyalty cards, and discount cards through you mobile phone with the help of m-commerce. M-commerce can also let you do mobile banking, and let you use your money in different companies. Just like using a laptop or a desktop, as long as your phone has Internet access, so too can you shop until you drop using m-commerce.

E-commerce, on the other hand, is an abbreviation of electronic commerce. This means that e-commerce is a way of doing business transactions through the Internet as well. If you have a laptop or a desktop then you can easily shop online. It has become very popular in these modern days. Not only can it help you do transactions online, it is also very convenient with all the swipe machines where you can swipe your credit card for payment. People can do a business-to-business transaction via e-commerce called B2B. It can also do a company to consumer transaction called B2C. This is where your orders will be received via shipments and deliveries. You can use credit cards when doing these transactions. One of the best examples for this is when amazon.com do business with their clients. Another popular online shopping site is eBay.

1. M-commerce means using mobile phone with Internet access, while e-commerce needs a laptop or desktop, but both are performed online.
2. You can pay an e-commerce transaction through swipe machines where you swipe you credit cards, m-commerce does not have this yet.
3. M-commerce is more portable compared to e-commerce, because mobile phones are easy to carry.
4. The “m” in m-commerce means mobile phone, while the “e” in e-commerce means electronic.