The term "electronic commerce" has evolved from its meager notion of electronic shopping to mean all aspects of business and market processes enabled by the Internet and the World Wide Web technologies.

Electronic Commerce As Online Selling
Narrowly defined, electronic commerce means doing business online or selling and buying products and services through Web storefronts. Products being traded may be physical products such as used cars or services (e.g. arranging trips, online medical consultation, and remote education). Increasingly, they include digital products such as news, audio and video, database, software and all types of knowledge-based products. It appears then electronic commerce is similar to catalog shopping or home shopping on cable TV.

Electronic Commerce As a Market
Electronic commerce is not limited to buying and selling products online. For example, a neighborhood store can open a Web store and find the world in its door step. But, along with customers, it will also find its suppliers, accountants, payment services, government agencies and competitors online. This online or digital partners demand changes in the way we do business from production to consumption, and they will affect companies who might think they are not part of electronic commerce. Along with online selling, electronic commerce will lead to significant changes in the way products are customized, distributed and exchanged and the way consumers search and bargain for products and services and consume them.

In short, the electronic commerce revolution is in its effects on processes. Process-oriented definition of electronic commerce offers a broader view of what electronic commerce is. Within-business processes (e.g. manufacturing, inventorying, corporate financial management, operation), and business-to-business processes (e.g. supply-chain management, bidding) are affected by the same technology and network as are business-to-consumer processes. Even government functions, education, social and political processes undergo changes.