The internet has made hitherto unthought-of possibilities a reality. Ecommerce or electronic commerce has opened up new vistas of doing business anytime, anywhere. The need for complete ecommerce solutions is daily paving the way for innumerable innovations in the field of information technology. Ecommerce developments have the potential to change the financial equations existing between the nations of the world.

The buying and selling of products or services over the internet is referred to as ecommerce. Ecommerce development is directly proportional to increase in internet availability and usage. The search for perfect ecommerce solutions has stimulated areas such as electronics funds transfer, supply chain management, inventory management, data management, online transaction processing and web site designing to name a few.

Today's advanced technology and the internet boom allows ecommerce solutions to run businesses the world over. There are ecommerce solution providers through out the world who are capable of delivering customized ecommerce web site design for the end users and customized ecommerce software for the back end operations. A complete ecommerce solution includes design and development of a web site, database of products/service offerings; order processing systems, payment systems etc.

With a complete ecommerce solution, the hassles of running a business are magically removed. There is no need for a store space or salesmen or premises administration etc. ecommerce developments have ensured that the customer can simply visit the online store of his choice, place his order, make his payments and relax. In a fixed time, the goods are delivered to him physically by mail, at his doorstep.

Ecommerce software also known popularly as shopping cart software is a software application that is integrated into the ecommerce web site, as part of a complete ecommerce solution. The ecommerce software runs on the web server and allows customers to browse through the web site, choose items, dump them into 'shopping carts' and then order the items. A common example for what the ecommerce software does is the 'Search' feature available in any ecommerce web site.

Ecommerce software typically has three components: a database to store product data, a user interface that acts as a 'store front' and an admin area that allows the store keeper to manage items in the store. Most of the store data is available in backend databases; this means an ecommerce web site design should be in a way that allows the web pages to be loaded dynamically, depending on what the end user chooses to view.

Ecommerce solutions are available as off-the-shelf applications. These solutions will include ecommerce web design and ecommerce software woven together seamlessly. A business can buy such an application and then customize it to its needs. Ecommerce solutions are available for different broad business categories like book stores, travel agencies, grocery stores etc. A good ecommerce solution should be able accommodate and handle increase in catalog items and increase in order volumes.

Ecommerce development can be customized to handle both Business-to-Business(B2B) as well as Business-to-Consumer (B2C) situations, on the web. B2B allows business to be conducted between two businesses like a credit bureau agency providing credit information to banks. B2C allows businesses to interact with individual consumers like a book store selling books to customers.