E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the practice of conducting commercial transactions online, including selling physical goods, digital products and services through websites, apps and marketplaces.
Why it matters
Online selling removes geographic limits and runs around the clock, but it depends on technology working at every step: product pages, cart, payment and delivery. Slow pages, outages and security problems directly turn into lost orders. It covers several models, including B2C stores, B2B ordering portals, marketplaces and subscription boxes, and it often uses third-party tools for payments, shipping and email.
Example
A store lists 200 products. A customer finds one through search, adds it to the cart, pays by card through a gateway, receives an email confirmation and gets a tracking number. Each step is a point where something can fail.
Common mistakes
- Treating the website as finished after launch instead of monitoring speed and uptime.
- Ignoring mobile checkout quality.
- Not testing the payment and confirmation email flow regularly.
Related
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