Back office operations - programmers might beg to differ, in e-commerce terms back end and back office

Back office operations - programmers might beg to differ, in e-commerce terms back end and back office effectively mean the same thing - with office being more pertinent to the business community. The term has technical origins, where the element of a software application that interfaces with end users referred to as the front end, and the server element, the back end. Offline, however, it has always been common practice to refer to staff who deal with customers as front office and those who have no contact with customers as back office. In e-commerce the two come together. Front office refers to those elements of the web presence with which users (customers) interact, and back office those elements of the business that support customer transactions. For example, on an online shop the front-office operations would be everything from the customer arriving on the site - usability, navigation, graphics, sales copy, and so on - up to the point where they confirm a purchase. Anything that supports the fulfilment of that online sale is deemed back-office operations. This would include such things as inventory management, purchasing (from suppliers), payment processing, storage, packaging and delivery.