Home-based e-business - an option for the self-employed ?
B2C includes all e-business between businesses and individuals, from retailing over the Internet to Web-enabled services such as banking. B2C transactions provide consumers with online shopping through Internet, allowing consumers to shop and pay their bills online. This type of offering saves time for both retailers and consumers. Several characteristics are shared by most B2C transactions:
• A secure firewall is used to safely make purchases.
• A catalog is used to browse products before making a selection and purchase.
• Non-repetitive items are purchased each time you shop online.
• Items are purchased with a credit card or debit card.
• Electronic Network within the company or organization
Through Intranet, people can exchange and handle business information internally.
• Customer to Customer
Consumers can post their own products online through some agent Web site for other consumers to buy. Such sites include well-known auction sites such as eBay.
• Government to Citizen
Among various kinds of services provided by governments, many of them can be done through electronic media. The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has launched the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) Scheme on Internet in December 2000, providing more than 60 kinds of services round the clock.
• Government to Business
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has launched the Electronic Tendering System (ETS) in April 2000. This system is an infrastructure to provide online services such as registration of suppliers, tender notification, download facility for tender documents, inquiries handling, submission of tender proposals and announcement of tender results.
Although e-business are generally divided into six categories as mentioned above, over 90% of e-business are concentrated on B2B and B2C activities. Therefore, home-based e-businesses in this study are mainly focus on B2B and B2C except that there are some C2C activities through auction site like eBay.