I mentioned earlier that e-commerce is the buying and selling of products and services by electronic means. Let’s take a look in more detail what that means in relation to B2B.

Take the example of a major supermarket chain such as Tesco or Asda. Be assured there is a lot more to it than I can hope to describe, but here are the basics.

The company will have a computer system in place whereby when the stock level of an item drops below a certain level an automatic order is placed for more of that item.

At the beginning of each day, the system knows how many items are in stock. Every time an item is purchased, its barcode is scanned at the checkout and the stock is reduced accordingly. Eventually the time will come when the number of items left for sale is lower than the ‘minimum stock level’. (This level will be continually adjusted depending upon whether the item is selling fast or slow).

At a specified time each day, the system will look at all items that have dropped below this level and mark them to be re-ordered.

The orders for all the ‘marked’ items are automatically sent to the suppliers (of these there will be many) and at the appropriate time, payment is made and more stock arrives. A local village shop may do all this by telephone; nevertheless the underlying concept is still the same.

Business-to-business is not a new concept, but before the advent of e-commerce everything was done via different methods, that’s all. The technology that has made life easier is the computer – and until the Star Trek Transporter is invented, goods will still need to be delivered by traditional means!!