In its simplest form ecommerce is the buying and selling of products and services by businesses or consumers over the World Wide Web. People use the term "ecommerce" or "online shopping" to describe the process of searching for and selecting products in online catalogues and then "checking out" using a credit card and encrypted payment processing.

E-commerce can provide the following benefits over non-electronic commerce:
- Reduced costs by reducing labour, reduced paper work, reduced errors in keying in data, reduce post costs
- Reduced time. Shorter lead times for payment and return on investment in advertising, faster delivery of product
- Flexibility with efficiency. The ability to handle complex situations, product ranges and customer profiles without the situation becoming unmanageable.
- Improve relationships with trading partners. Improved communication between trading partners leads to enhanced long-term relationships.
- Lock in Customers. The closer you are to your customer and the more you work with them to change from normal business practices to best practice e-commerce the harder it is for a competitor to upset your customer relationship.
- New Markets. The Internet has the potential to expand your business into wider geographical locations.