What is ecommerce? It means electronic commerce which refers to sales transactions made over the world wide web. Think of it as shopping online.

The shopper finds a web site selling something they would like to buy. Shopping cart technology is used to gather the order details and payment information.

If the store owner uses a real time payment gateway, the credit card provided is automatically charged. If the transaction is approved, the merchant is notified of the new order and ships the order when ready.

For non-real time solutions, the merchant receives the credit card details in an encrypted email and charges the card manually and ships the online order.

That is how ecommerce works in very simple terms. This tutorial aims to cover the steps involved to help you create your own web site and sell items online.