North America Internet & E-Commerce

The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. Electronic commerce, typically known as e-commerce, is the buying and selling of goods and services via electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. E-Commerce includes the entire online process of developing, marketing, selling, delivering, servicing and paying for products and services. Conducting commerce in this manner utilizes innovations in electronic funds transfer and a myriad of additional electronic processes such as online transaction, data interchange, supply chain and inventory management, Internet marketing, and automated data collection systems. E-Commerce uses the Internet at least at some point in the transaction, be it through e-mail, a mobile device or telephone.

The majority of e-commerce is conducted entirely electronically for intellectual content, such as access to premium data offered on a website, but e-commerce also involves shipping physical items. Online retailers are sometimes referred to as e-tailers and online retail as e-tail. Almost all retailers have e-commerce presence on the Internet.

E-commerce between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B. Electronic commerce that takes place between businesses and consumers is called business-to-consumer or B2C. This is the type of electronic commerce conducted by companies such as MarketResearch.com. Online shopping is a form of e-commerce where the buyer is directly online to the seller's computer via the internet with no intermediary. The sale and purchase transaction is completed electronically and interactively, such as MarketResearch.com for market research data reports. An intermediary involvement (such as eBay) is typically referred to as electronic commerce.

Electronic commerce is the sales side of e-business. It is comprised as well by the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of the business transactions.