There is no unified definition of e-commerce so far, which is one of the reasons why the concept of e-commerce is easy to cause confusion. Different books and institutions at home and abroad have different definitions of e-commerce, and e-commerce researchers have given many definitions of e-commerce from different angles. The definition of excerpts from online marketing teaching websites is more influential.

1. Professor Li Qi, an e-commerce expert, defined e-commerce in Introduction to E-commerce (Higher Education Press, September 2004) (P 13);

First of all, e-commerce is divided into broad sense and narrow sense. E-commerce in a broad sense is defined as the use of various electronic tools to engage in business or activities. These tools range from basic telegrams, telephones, broadcasts, televisions and faxes to computers and computer networks to modern systems such as NII (National Information Infrastructure-Information Superhighway), GII (Global Information Infrastructure) and the Internet. Commercial activities are all activities based on the demand activities of pan-commodities (physical and non-physical, commodity and non-commodity production factors, etc.). ) to the reasonable and legal consumption of pan-commodities except the typical production process. In a narrow sense, e-commerce is defined as mainly using the Internet to engage in business or activities. E-commerce is the general name of people who master information technology and business rules, systematically use electronic tools and engage in various activities centered on commodity exchange with high efficiency and low cost in modern society with highly developed technology and economy. This analysis highlights the premise, center, focus, purpose and standard of e-commerce, and points out the level and effect it should achieve. It is a stricter definition of e-commerce and reflects the requirements of the times. It emphasizes the central position of people in the system from the perspective of system, organically links environment with people, people with tools, and people with labor objects, and defines e-commerce with system objectives and system components, thus making e-commerce productive.

2. The definition of e-commerce by Professor Sui Wendi, an e-commerce expert, in the fourth edition (xidian university Press, 65438+2004 10) (P 13);

E-commerce refers to all kinds of commercial activities carried out by the parties or participants in the transaction by using modern information technology and computer networks (mainly the Internet), including trade in goods, services and intellectual property rights.

The understanding of e-commerce should be considered from two aspects: modern information technology and commerce. On the one hand, the concept of "modern information technology" in "e-commerce" should cover all kinds of communication methods based on electronic technology; On the other hand, the word "business" should be interpreted in a broad sense, so that all matters arising from commercial relations, whether contractual or non-contractual, can be explained. If "modern information technology" is regarded as a subset and "commerce" as another subset, then the scope of e-commerce should be the intersection formed by these two subsets, that is, the various uses of Internet, intranet and electronic data exchange that may be widely involved under the heading of "e-commerce" in trade.