E-commerce E-commerce ( electronic commerce ) is the activity of electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet . Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce , electronic funds transfer , supply chain management , Internet marketing , online transaction processing , electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems , and automated data collection systems. E-commerce is in turn driven by the technological advances of the semiconductor industry and is the largest sector of the electronics industry . Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail . Typical e-commerce transactions include the purchase of online books (such as Amazon ) and music...