Editing E-commerce (section)

===Impact on supply chain management===
{{main|Supply chain management}}

For a long time, companies had been troubled by the gap between the benefits which supply chain technology has and the solutions to deliver those benefits. However, the emergence of e-commerce has provided a more practical and effective way of delivering the benefits of the new supply chain technologies.<ref name="Marincas-2008">{{cite journal|author=Marincas|first=Delia Adriana|date=2008|title=Information system for the supply chain management|url=https://ideas.repec.org/a/aes/amfeco/v10y2008i24p236-253.html|journal=[[The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC Journal]]|volume=10|issue=24|pages=236–253|access-date=8 May 2015|archive-date=18 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518065928/https://ideas.repec.org/a/aes/amfeco/v10y2008i24p236-253.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

E-commerce has the capability to integrate all inter-company and intra-company functions, meaning that the three flows (physical flow, financial flow and information flow) of the supply chain could be also affected by e-commerce. The affections on physical flows improved the way of product and inventory movement level for companies. For the information flows, e-commerce optimized the capacity of information processing than companies used to have, and for the financial flows, e-commerce allows companies to have more efficient payment and settlement solutions.<ref name="Marincas-2008" />

In addition, e-commerce has a more sophisticated level of impact on supply chains: Firstly, the performance gap will be eliminated since companies can identify gaps between different levels of supply chains by electronic means of solutions; Secondly, as a result of e-commerce emergence, new capabilities such implementing ERP systems, like [[SAP ERP]], [[Xero (software)|Xero]], or Megaventory, have helped companies to manage operations with customers and suppliers. Yet these new capabilities are still not fully exploited. Thirdly, technology companies would keep investing on new e-commerce software solutions as they are expecting investment return. Fourthly, e-commerce would help to solve many aspects of issues that companies may feel difficult to cope with, such as political barriers or cross-country changes. Finally, e-commerce provides companies a more efficient and effective way to collaborate with each other within the supply chain.<ref name="Marincas-2008" />