Electronic Commerce commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce basically refers to business that is conducted over the Internet using any of the applications that rely on the Internet, such as e-mail, instant messaging, shopping carts, Web services, amongst others.
It is a term for all kinds of business that are established electronically especially over the Internet. Usually it’s a process of buying or selling goods, information or services via the internet & most commonly done through a merchant's or service provider's website, usually involving an online catalog and shopping cart. The transactions are commercial in nature since the goods, information or services bought are then paid for.

In today’s increasingly competitive global marketplace with the advancement of technology, particularly the Internet, a large percentage of e-commerce is conducted entirely electronically for virtual items such as access to premium content on a website, but most electronic commerce involves the transportation of physical items in some way.

Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions and a well-equipped website is an intrinsic part of any e-commerce network. The website design should be so that it appeals to and attracts more and more visitors.

In spite of many professional web design service providers, all do not specialize in designing ecommerce websites since designing for an ecommerce site is inherently unique and requires a proper understanding of the positioning dynamics of the site.

Advantages

E-commerce is generally the "in-thing" today since the concept covers the global information economy. Apart from this, it provides the following ad-vantages:

• Unlimited Information available at our fingertips, without wasting time, money and effort, and also conducts real time transactions in a "borderless world" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• With reduced marketing/advertising expense the competition gap has shrunk & one can compete on equal footing with much bigger companies

• Reduces business cost due to less overhead expense of inventory, employees, purchasing, order processing associated with unnecessary phone calls & data entry and with right software business administration tasks can be automatically stored, categorized and updated in real-time, and accessed on demand.

• Provides larger advertising market exposure, direct participation of buyers & sellers thereby eliminating middle man participation.

• Offers catalog updating flexibility of adding new products, adjusting prices online by way of Direct "link" capabilities to content information and visual displays already existing on other’s web site, without any additional expense.

• Extensive search capabilities by item, corporate name, division name, location, manufacturer, partner, price or any other specified need.

• Complete automation of workflow in Shipping, real time inventory accounting system which adjusts stock levels and site, location availability instantaneously.

• Secured, automated registration verification, account entry and transaction authorization features along with Automated RFP and RTQ features for vendor bid development and selection.

• Banking and accounting features customized for pre-approved third party direct sales, vendor, consignment or internal transfer transactions.

• Builds loyalty by giving customers control of sales process and also allows for encrypted secure payment online