The ultimate goal of an e-business is to generate revenue and make a profit, similar to traditional businesses. It is factual that the Internet has improved productivity for almost all the organizations that are using it. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that productivity must be converted to profitability. To achieve profitability as the final goal, different e-businesses or e-commerce sites position themselves in different parts of the value-chain. To generate revenue, an e-business either sells products/services or shortens the link between the suppliers and consumers. Many business-to-business models try to eliminate the middleman by using the Web to deliver products/services directly to their customers. By doing this they may be able to offer cheaper products and better customer service to their customers. The end result would be a differentiation between them and their competitors, increased market share, and increased customer loyalty. Products sold by e-businesses could be either traditional products, such as books and clothing, or digital products, such as songs, computer software, or electronic books.
E-commerce models are either an extension or revision of traditional business models, such as advertising model, or a new type of business model that is suitable for the Web implementation, such as info-mediary. Merchant, brokerage, advertising, mixed, info-mediary, subscription are the most popular e-commerce models.
•Merchant model: This model basically transfers the old retail model to the e-commerce world by using the Internet. There are different types of merchant models. The most common type of merchant model is similar to a traditional business model that sells goods and services over the Web. Amazon.com is a good example of this type. An e-business similar to Amazon.com utilizes the services and technologies offered by the Web to sell products and services directly to the consumers. By offering good customer service