Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, sometimes it is also called web-based commerce consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. It can be further subdivided into three categories. They are business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and even consumer-to-consumer transactions that involve the buying and selling of goods and services, the transfer of funds, and even the exchange of ideas.

The history of e-commerce can be traced back to 1928-49 Berlin blockade and the consequent airlifting. In the process, e-commerce originated as a standard for document exchanging. Besides that, the meaning of electronic commerce has changed over the last 30 years. Originally, electronic commerce was primarily used to facilitate commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically and both are introduced in the late 1970s. In fact, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the first general standard which is instantly recognizable and flexible. It was first published in 1975. After that, the growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce.

Electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data warehousing and data mining from the 1990s onwards. Now, it has come to include different activities and processes like e-banking, e-logistics, and offshore manufacturing and alike. There has been incredible growth of supporting systems like applications, back-end systems and middleware with e-commerce. Therefore, modern industries greatly depend on the processes like broadband fiber optic networks, inventory systems, material planning modules and alike, for smooth functioning.

The earliest example of electronic commerce in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet online system introduced in 1991.