In one sense E-commerce (or electronic commerce) is nothing new. Computers have been used to process credit-card payments since the 1960s (and automated teller machines have been common since the early 1980s). But that's not what most people mean by "E-commerce" nowadays. In a nutshell, E-commerce is: Every thing involved in selling things online It's about how you use the Internet - from your web site to your email strategy - to enhance sales and your customers' buying experience. You can have varying degrees of E-commerce on your site. For example,

     •  You might want to start off quite modestly, by having an order form online, which customers can then print out and post (or even fax) to you;
     •  Or you might give a simple facility for customers to email their orders to you. Again, no big deal, and particularly useful for some business-to-business transactions;
     •  Or you might want a "full E-commerce" system, where customers can look for products, order and pay for them online by credit card.

The reason why people want to opt for a full E-commerce system is simple. As more and more people go online, they expect to be able to use online payment options. Forget about ordering by post (although your site should also have a form giving this option for customer’s who prefer this). Accepting credit cards only by fax or phone isn't a proper long-term solution either. If you are serious about selling through your web site, then sooner (rather than later) you will need to accept credit cards online.

The Web's big attraction as a shopping channel is its immediacy. There is no such thing as impulse buying when you have to write a cheque, stuff it in an envelope and post it. An increasing amount of your online customers don't want to have to mess about posting cheques and order forms. They want to buy your products there and then, online.

The four stages

Think of a traditional, physical shop. It includes shopping trolleys, displays of goods, and the cash registers. An online shop is slightly different - you use software to provide for the shop's main operating sections:
     1. the shop itself
     2. the customer's shopping trolley
     3. the cash register
     4. the back room or "back end"
Your E-commerce system has to work for both your customers and your company. From your customers' perspective, it must be intuitive and easy to use. It must also integrate with your organisation so that orders are processed effectively and payments are collected efficiently. A full E-commerce system has to be able to deal not only with your customers but with financial institutions, with your stock control and your dispatch department.