eCommerce is the umbrella term for buying and selling goods and services over the internet — everything from a small online shop to a massive multinational marketplace falls under it. It's fundamentally changed how people shop, giving both sellers and buyers access to a global market that never technically closes.
The Main Types of eCommerce
- Business-to-consumer (B2C) — a company selling directly to individual shoppers
- Business-to-business (B2B) — one business selling to another
- Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) — individuals selling directly to each other, as on eBay
- Dropshipping — selling products that a third party manufactures and ships on your behalf
Platforms Worth Knowing
- WooCommerce — a free, highly flexible plugin that turns WordPress into a full online store
- Shopify — an all-in-one, hosted eCommerce platform
- BigCommerce — comparable to Shopify, aimed more at larger stores
- Magento — a powerful, highly customizable option, generally suited to bigger, more technical teams
Getting Started
A working eCommerce store needs, at minimum: a reliable platform, a product catalogue, a working payment gateway, and a clear plan for actually driving traffic to it. WooCommerce tends to be the natural starting point for anyone already comfortable with WordPress, since it builds directly on top of a system they likely already know.
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