An Exploding Marketplace

The world has become a busy place, with trillions of dollars changing hands each year in business transactions and consumer spending. While the customary method of doing business in person or via telephone is still in use, the growing trend is to conduct ecommerce transactions on-line, with the use of computers.

On-line revenues from ecommerce in the U.S. alone have grown from 24.1 billion in 2000, to over 100 billion in 2005. And, the number of on-line users in the U.S. has exploded from 124.7 million in 2000 to over 200 million.

Canada’s combined private and public online sales have also experienced a boom. Up almost 40% in 2003 from a 27% jump in 2002; public sector enterprises realized nearly $511.4 million in sales.

Along with the skyrocketing use of the virtual marketplace comes the need for special tools, such as ecommerce web hosting, ecommerce software, and the ecommerce shopping cart.

How Does it All Work?

Ecommerce web hosting provides a business web site with special tools for doing business over the internet. Features such as extended data storage and monthly data transfer capacities, security certificates, and complex data bases are required to make a business web site run smoothly.

Higher data capacities allow for the sheer size of a business site, and the enormous exchange of information involved. Security certificates make the site safe for monetary transactions, and databases such as SQL keep track of individual accounts, purchases, inventory, or any transaction.

The ecommerce shopping cart allows the customer to select items and then purchase them at a virtual check out stand, usually with several payment method options, such as credit cards and PayPal.

Businesses require skilled personnel to implement and monitor these special tools for marketing goods or services on-line. There are many ecommerce web hosting firms that meet these and other special needs for a successful ecommerce solution.