Difference Between m commerce and e commerce

m commerce vs e commerce

m commerce and e commerce are the latest mode of doing business over the internet. The term e commerce has been around for quite some time now and a vast majority of people know about it. But the recent addition of m commerce has made the situation a little bit confusing for some. Despite being similar in nature, as both involve buying and selling with the help of internet, there are many glaring differences between the two. This article intends to clear the doubts and myths surrounding both the concepts.


In layman’s terms, m commerce is the practice of conducting activities that are both financial and promotional in nature, with the help of mobile phones though it technically also includes use of other handheld wireless devices. It is an abbreviation of mobile commerce, and the process establishes the fact that it is possible to carry out financial transactions using mobile phones. Though the concept of m commerce is relatively new, it has taken the world by storm and is being used increasingly by people having mobile phones with internet facility. One of the most basic examples of m commerce is sending of promotional messages through mobile phones though there is no use of internet in it.

Users can book movie tickets on their net enabled phones and theatre can send tickets using different technologies to their phones. Users can show these tickets at the entrance of theatres. In the same manner, coupons, discount offers and loyalty cards can be sent to mobile phones and people can get these offers at retail outlets by showing their phones at the venues.

With the arrival of 4G, it is possible to purchase a movie and download it on a mobile phone within seconds.

A very good example of m commerce is mobile banking where a customer can use his phone to access his account and make remittances to different companies.

Using net on their mobiles, people can shop online just as they would using their desktops and laptops.


An abbreviation of electronic commerce, e commerce is the process of conducting financial transactions over internet. With exponential increase in the use of internet, e commerce has increased tremendously over the last few years. Apart from internet marketing and online transactions, e commerce has pervaded our lives because of the use of swap machines at almost every retail outlet where customers pay using their credit and debit cards. In almost every transaction using e-commerce, there is the use of internet at some point of transaction. E commerce can take place between two companies, when it is called B2B, or between companies and customers, where it is called B2C. One good example of B2C would be amazon.com which is an online shopping portal where customers visit online, choose products of their choice, make payments using their credit cards and receive the products via shipping. This is a perfect example of online shopping.

Difference between m commerce and e commerce

Technically speaking, m commerce is a part of e commerce which allows a person to conduct transactions using his mobile phone. It is sometimes referred to as next generation m commerce. It enables a person to shop from anywhere. It also enables companies and sellers to come closer to the end users. Despite obvious similarities, there are many differences between m commerce and e-commerce.

Difference between m commerce and e commerce

› E commerce is available to only those places where we have net connectivity, but with m commerce we are free from all such boundaries.

› Video conferencing has become possible with m commerce even in places where there is no internet.

› E commerce not only needs internet but also electricity whereas there is no such requirement with m commerce.

› M commerce is easier to get to in comparison to e commerce but at present, using m commerce is costlier than using e commerce.

  • Abdelhalim

    nice description, thanks alot

  • http://twitter.com/xannj3 M. Antoinette Jerom

    Good article, but it would have been better if the points jotted were elaborated more ;)