ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · E-business: value chain

Kestrel Outdoor Gear designs tents and sells them only through its own website, taking card payments online and shipping directly to customers. It also uses an intranet for staff scheduling and an extranet for suppliers to view stock levels. Which description best distinguishes e-commerce from e-business in this case?

E-commerce is the electronic buying and selling of goods, here the online tent sales and payments. E-business is wider, covering all internet-enabled processes, including the staff intranet and supplier extranet. So e-commerce is a subset of e-business.

AE-commerce is the online buying and selling of Kestrel's tents, while e-business covers all internet-enabled business processes including the intranet and supplier extranetCorrect
BE-commerce covers the intranet and supplier extranet, while e-business covers only the website sales
CE-commerce and e-business are identical terms, so the intranet and extranet are both e-commerce
DE-commerce refers only to promotion of tents online, while e-business refers to the payment process

Explanation

E-commerce is the narrower term, covering the buying and selling transactions conducted electronically. E-business is broader and includes internal and external processes such as intranets, extranets, procurement and supply chain links. The distractor reversing the terms misplaces the internal and supplier systems.

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