5. What is an Internet shop?

You can do business on the Internet by selling goods and services on special interactive web pages.

As you can display virtually any information you want on the Internet, nothing stops you from displaying information on your products and services - for everyone to visit who has access to the Internet.

This is exactly how eCommerce started. In the early stages this was all many people did. And even today this is better than to completely ignore the Internet.

However today things have become a lot more sophisticated  - and consumers expect more.

Simple information pages are no longer enough. Today a real Internet shop is interactive. It allows customers to easily navigate through your product information pages, to search for specific products and to preferably get more information than they would for example get from a catalogue.

It also allows customers to click on buttons to add products to a virtual shopping cart - a software program which remembers which products a customer wants to purchase. It calculates total costs payable, including tax and shipping, and sends the shop owner the orders from his Internet customers. For the customers it makes the shopping experience interactive, easy and fast.