ETO Home

Telework
Teletrade
Telecooperation

Links
Definitions
FAQs
Events

Search
Feedback
Discussion

Site management

Page updated:
7 February 1997

Page owner:
ETO Site Team

Isn't Teletrade the same as Electronic Commerce?

Management Technology Associates, a partner in the ETD initiative positions teletrade as something much broader than electronic commerce. They describe it as covering all types of business uses of electronic networks, throughout all phases of a business relationship. It thus includes all of the following and more:

Identification of customer needs and wants - for example, by analysing feedback given online, or through monitoring activity in focused discussion lists
Prospecting for Customers - through active participation in newsgroups and email lists frequented by the target customer groups
Marketing of goods and services online - such as through product catalogues, that provide current information and latest pricing, on the World Wide Web
Direct Selling - by making it easy for customers to order online, extending even further into provision for accepting payments and even (where appropriate) delivering over a network
Supply Chain Management - supporting those in the supply chain, such as dealers and distributors, through online interaction; especially useful for dealing with those in remote market locations
Customer Services and Support - providing extensive support to customers by logging queries online and having them handled by appropriate experts who are also networked

Our analysis of electronic commerce resources, shows that most of it is focused on the more structured formal aspects of teletrade - the actual purchase transaction. Thus, significant attention is given to the role of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), which involves computer-to-computer transactions. These transactions represent only a small part of a typical overall buying cycle. There has also been a traditional focus on closed trading networks, whereas teletrade is broader and covers many of the activities of open electronic networking, such as that carried out over the Internet.

Another perspective is offered by the ESPRIT electronic commerce pages (Note: 40K). This indicates four categories of electronic commerce:

Business-business: Using networks to place orders, receive invoices and make payments; the well established form of EDI that typically uses EDI
Business-consumer: Effectively electronic retailing. Gaining popularity with the World Wide Web for example, through various electronic shopping malls
Business-administration: Transactions between companies and government organisations; currently in its infancy; examples include government procurement tenders (in the USA), and potentially for VAT reruns and payment of corporate taxes
Consumer-administration: Still to emerge, but could include self-assessed tax returns and welfare payments on-line

These various examples demonstrate the broad scope of teletrade and the opportunities it creates. The challenge to businesses, of all sizes, is to seize those opportunities and address the challenges. Our pages Opportunities and Challenges are aimed at providing a useful start.

For comments or questions on this page, please use the feedback form

ETO is supported by ETD, an initiative of the European Commission (DGXIII) ACTS programme
Page address: http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/ttecom.htm