intro to ecommerce

E-commerce an Introduction In the broadest sense, electronic commerce (e-commerce), is the buying and selling of products and services over the Internet. It has included the handling of purchase transactions and funds transfers over computer networks. According to the Forrester Research Study "Sizing Intercompany Commerce," total U.S business-to-business Internet trade in 1998 is $7.7 billion, compared to a total global e-commerce of $21.8 billion, dramatically increasing from $2.5 billion in 1997. By the year 2002, according to the report, there …

… companies are forced to develop their own custom systems. Thus at present it tends to be only the larger and richer companies that are pioneering these levels. However, over time the boundary of what is commonplace will gradually move up to encompass the more complex levels of electronic commerce, and further "off the shelf" technologies will be established to support these higher levels, just as they have been for the lower levels. Bibliography none