Electronic commerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.

Electronic commerce typically uses electronic communications technology of the World Wide Web, at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although of course electronic commerce frequently depends on computer technologies other than the World Wide Web, such as databases, and e-mail, and on other non-computer technologies, such as transportation for physical goods sold via e-commerce.

Most people involved in the design, creation, marketing, implementation, hyping and analysis of e commerce sites don't think about the basic relationship that commerce is based on. A quality online shopping experience must be designed from a firm understanding of this basic relationship.

Most people have an understanding of commerce based on their experience as shoppers and buyers, and they bring this experience with them when they start shopping online. In order to meet the user's needs, then, we must understand the typical user's experience of traditional commerce.

Most problems with commerce sites are due to misunderstandings on the part of the site creators about how users understand the structure and elements of typical commerce transactions. Users have formed schemas to understand commerce, but commerce sites routinely ignore these schemas.

E commerce web sites must pay attention to how they communicate to users. E commerce sites play their role of seller by trying to broadcast two messages to potential buyers: "buy from us" and "trust us".