Electronic Commerce or eCommerce refers to the buying and selling of
products and services via the Internet. Many business web hosting
companies now provide the hardware, software and
technical architecture for secured EC transactions.
Some business web hosting firms provide only the tools and environment to
build an ecommerce application. You must do most of the work. Fortunately, many business web hosting firms now offer "turnkey"
EC systems
that do a number things:
- authenticate visitors using User IDs and passwords
- allow products and services to be added to an online store
- provide e-shopping cart functionality for shopping
- allow the user interface to be customized (e.g. color, font)
- perform credit card and/or debit card transaction
- notify appropriate parties when a EC transaction occurs (e.g. shipping,
accounting)
If you require e-Commerce functionality on your business website, it is
important to carefully assess what functionality is offered.
