An ecommerce website essentially deals in online transactions for purchase and sale of products over the internet. Ecommerce is an abbreviated form for Electronic Commerce and is also sometimes referred to as eCommerces. With the advent of Internet, trades over ecommerce website have grown significantly and so has EC Web development. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) governs and regulates the activities of the ecommerce websites.

website development has facilitated and eased many operations that include the following, either individually or in combination:

• Funds (money) transfer over the internet
• Automation of data collection systems
• Electronic data exchanges
• Inventory management systems
• Supply chain management systems

Ecommerce has revolutionized the way business is done on the internet. However, it was a long struggle, as the security features were still being developed and implemented. Security was a major concern as ecommerce websites mostly dealt with cash transactions and involved online payments using credit cards. Thus it was a challenge for most of the ecommerce website developments to gain the confidence of the people and get them to transact on the World Wide Web. During the dot-com boom many “brick and mortar” establishments went online for their business and flourished as ecommerce traders. Many home based businesses tried their luck on the World Wide Web and started selling their goods online. However, many such hurried and random online businesses collapsed with the burst of the dot-com bubble. Companies and ventures with real strong fundamentals and business models sustained as revenue generators in the ecommerce space. Some of these include eBay, Amazon, Office Depot, Staples, and other similar ventures, which had office stationery, music/movie CDs and DVDs, books, and so on.

Ecommerce website development involves a stable consideration of various technical facets:

• A foremost consideration is about the strategy and a strong market research that will define the success of the ecommerce venture. This must be adequately backed by a professional management and a technical team to build a profitable business model.
• Designing a robust website that provides complete information about the products and services. The ecommerce website should be able to suitably facilitate information sharing and flow among the customers, partners, suppliers so that a common view is shared among all these.
• The systems on which the website is being developed and hosted should be scalable, stable, reliable, and highly secure. Proper fail-safe, encryption, and hardware redundancy features must be well in place.
• The ecommerce website development should be on latest technologies and respond quickly to technological advancements, and if required to social and economic changes as well.

An ecommerce endeavor, like every other business, focuses on the customer experience. The ecommerce website must make certain that customer feels pleasured about transacting online and returns for future purchases.

Jeff Smith is the managing director of Karma Technologies and feels strongly about implementing ways to be green into their business practices, to a point they are almost a paper-free company.