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When products and services are
purchased the web this is referred to as "ecommerce". From a
technical standpoint ecommerce is simply "electronic
commerce", and is a service provided by software vendors and
hosting providers to offer sellers the ability to sell
products and services online. This would be through secure
exchange of currency, usually credit cards, but also online
currency systems like PayPal
and echecks and such work too. Sites like Ebay offer
consumers and sellers a place to connect where products and
services can be purchased or sold. Often times however,
services are not sold through a third party vendor but
directly from seller to consumer. In these cases an
ecommerce application will facilitate that sale. Companies
selling software through their own site, or promotional
services or products will want to have their own capability
to let customers buy right from their site. This is done
through what is called a "shopping cart" which allows the
visitor to check items and upon concluding their visit
"check-out" with the items they have selected an interest
in. Setting up an online storefront is not very complex, and
there are a variety of web hosting providers that will offer
integrated storefront capabilities right into their hosting
plans. |
