Electronic commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services over the Web. Companies can now omit a physical storefront and instead have a Web presence that allows customers from all over the world to make purchases 24 hours a day. E-commerce can replace physical storefronts, paper catalogs, human customer service agents almost the whole process can be automated at significantly reduced costs.

Some retailers such as Dell and Amazon are only on the Web. Their business models are totally Web driven and both are pioneers and very successful E-commerce examples.