Ecommerce, e-commerce, or electronic commerce is defined as the conduct of financial transactions by electronic means. With the growth of commerce on the Internet and the Web, ecommerce often refers to purchases from online stores on the Web, otherwise knows as ecommerce Web sites. They may also be referred to as "virtual-stores" or Cyber stores. Since the transaction goes through the Internet and the Web, some have suggested another term: I-commerce (Internet commerce), or icommerce. E-commerce can be business to business (B to B) or business to consumer (B to C).

Getting started with ecommerce

The recipe for a successful online store includes ecommerce software (shopping cart software), your products, search engine marketing, administration and support.

Approaches to getting started:

Inexpensive ecommerce software with shopping cart. Choose a look and feel that you like and make only slight changes, or design it completely on your own. Your up-front investment is very small, yet you get lots of control and next to nothing monthly operating cost. Installation services and help are available if you get a little over your head. You may only need to spend from around $50 to a couple of hundred dollars on installation and configuration consulting, or do it yourself. The fruits of your labor belong to you.
Select a store template, customize it using online Web-based tools, add products and sell. Your control of look and feel is limited, and integrating with your Website is not seamless, nor is monthly costs the lowest, but it may be the easiest way to start. You won't need to know HTML to build the store, but will still have to make design selections, and process and upload images, not to mention adding product information to the site.
Hire a custom developer. Leave the "driving" to us. If you want to focus on being a merchant, have an excellent online store, and don't want a steep learning curve, it may make very good sense to spend $3,500 to $15,000 for a beautiful, working, custom ecommerce site.
If you have a medium or large thriving business, you may invest tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands to get the look and feel, enterprise level robustness, and integration with your in house inventory control and accounting systems.

Ecommerce Development

Selling goods and services online is the natural progression for many companies that are looking to expand their market. There is no other way of reaching more customers that is more cost-effective than an ecommerce site. As you know, this model has been so successful that some businesses have even forgone a physical location. While their situations stand out from the rest, even existing "bricks-and-mortar" businesses can benefit from selling online.

One of the keys to ensuring success with your ecommerce site is to make it robust enough to meet the needs of your customers while simple enough so that they don't need a manual to figure out how to buy something. Typically this means having a searchable catalog and a minimal number of clicks to get from the product page to the order page.