Difference Between

Commerce vs Business

The words commerce and business have similar connotations and there is a tendency of people to talk about these terms in the same breath as if both were same. However, there are differences in the two concepts which will be highlighted in this article.

Commerce is an abstract idea that refers to activities of buying and selling of goods and services whereas business is more physical in the sense that it can be owned by a person. A person can own a business but he certainly doesn’t own commerce. Similarly a company does business with its clients and not commerce though the activities of the company come within the purview of the broader term commerce.

Commerce is much closer in meaning to trade and trade related activities such as communication, transportation, insurance, and so on. On the other hand, business is an activity that is undertaken with the sole motive of making profits. If one tries to represent trade, commerce and business through Venn diagrams, trade and commerce appear to be subsets of business which is the largest circle containing both trade and commerce. Commerce is thus a part of all the activities that are carried out in the name of business such as planning, advertising, selling, buying, marketing, accounting and supervising manufacturing etc. Commerce is just the buying and selling part of business thus being smaller in scope than business. The difference between these two terms is also reflected in the relative importance of the courses of commerce and business. Whereas a student studying commerce is just a simple arts graduate, a student studying business holds a professional degree that opens doors of many more opportunities.