E-commerce, (electronic commerce), is online commerce verses real-world commerce. E-commerce includes retail shopping, banking, stocks and bonds trading, auctions, real estate transactions, airline booking, movie rentals—nearly anything you can imagine in the real world. Even personal services such as hair and nail salons can benefit from e-commerce by providing a website for the sale of related health and beauty products, normally available to local customers exclusively.

While e-commerce once required an expensive interface and personal security certificate, this is no longer the case. Virtual storefronts are offered by a variety of hosting services and large Internet presences such as eBay and Yahoo!, which offer turnkey solutions to vendors with little or no online experience. Tools for running successful e-commerce websites are built into the hosting servers, eliminating the need for the individual merchant to redesign the wheel. These tools include benefits like shopping carts, inventory and sales logs, and the ability to accept a variety of payment options including secure credit card transactions.

Though early e-commerce was stunted by security fears, improved technology has made millions of people worldwide feel comfortable buying online. Seeing the vast potential in e-commerce, most credit card companies helped allay fears by guaranteeing cardholders would not be held responsible for fraudulent charges as a result of online shopping. All of these factors have helped e-commerce become the booming industry it is today.

The growing popularity of e-commerce is understandable considering the time and hassle involved in running from store to store, searching for an item in the real world. It not only takes valuable time and energy, but gasoline. With today’s crowded cities and high gas prices, shopping online whenever the mood strikes—even in the middle of the night—has unarguable, unbeatable advantages. Not only is it convenient to shop at a myriad of vendors from the comfort of your computer chair, it’s also a snap to find the best deal by allowing sites like PriceGrabber and Froogle sift through hundreds of sellers for you.

E-commerce also has other advantages. Employee overhead is virtually nonexistent, and the yearly fee for an e-commerce website is nominal. Compare this to rental of storefront property, particularly in a busy mall. To top it off, most transactions are handled by software processes, never requiring a real person until the item is ready to be packed and shipped. This translates into real savings to the customer. As a result, real world businesses often cannot compete with their e-commerce counterparts, though one does have to watch for inflated shipping fees that might negate savings.

If you’ve been reticent to jump into the world of e-commerce head first, you might find your trepidations no longer founded. There are only a few simple rules when buying online. First, check to see that the seller is credible by referring to a site like ResellerRatings.com, and then read the site’s return and privacy policies. Also, never hand over personal information unless the website is operating through a secure server. You can identify a secure server by the address beginning with https, rather than http. The “s” means the information flowing between your computer and the website will be securely encrypted.

• 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.
• 1992: J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn publish Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change the Way We Shop and What We Buy. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312063598.
• 1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opens. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials also becomes commercially available, as do cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 is introduced in late 1994 SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
• 1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio start broadcasting. Dell and Cisco begin to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
• 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
• 1999: Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to eCompanies, which was purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster launches. ATG Stores launches to sell decorative items for the home online.
• 2000: The dot-com bust.
• 2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion [2]. Niche retail companies CSN Stores and NetShops are founded with the concept of selling products through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.
• 2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
• 2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million[3].
• 2008: US eCommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17 percent over 2007[4].