What Is Ecommerce? A Complete Guide

Ecommerce is the practice of buying or selling products via the internet. Purchasing goods or services online has become the norm for many, whether through an online store, marketplace, or social media platform.

You might think of an online store when you hear “ecommerce,” but it’s actually an umbrella term for the entire journey, from listing products online to delivering goods to someone’s doorstep.

Ecommerce works through a chain of digital workflows: an online platform for product listing, a secure payment gateway for transactions, and a fulfillment or delivery service.

Businesses can connect directly with customers, build relationships, manage inventory, ship goods, and promote their brand, all from the web.

The International Trade Administration forecasts that global business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will reach $5.5 trillion by 2027. Given this ongoing growth, most businesses operate in the online space. This can be their sole source of revenue, or a complement to in-person sales.

Ecommerce is constantly evolving to meet the latest trends and technology, such as agentic commerce and personalized shopping experiences. Adopting these methods can help your business boost sales, improve customer relationships, and save your company time and money in the long run.

These are the latest ecommerce trends for 2026:

• Agentic commerce: Consumers can use AI agents for product research and purchasing, directly within a conversational interface (all Wix websites are accessible for agentic commerce).
• Building stores with AI: AI website builders can help you build an online store from scratch, manage your inventory, generate product descriptions, and answer customer queries 24/7.
• Social commerce: With platforms like TikTok becoming search engines and mobile shopping on the rise, businesses must engage with their community across social media platforms to land sales and build trust.
• Personalized experiences: AI can monitor shopping behavior, browsing habits, and searches, to ensure relevant product recommendations are made to customers (this can be via your online store, through personalized newsletters, or with targeted ads).

Besides the growing ecommerce market, there are plenty of benefits when it comes to setting up an ecommerce business, including lower costs, convenience, and scalability.

Low Cost Setup

Ecommerce reduces initial business overhead by eliminating costs associated with physical storefronts, such as rent, staff salaries, and property maintenance.

Of course, there are some fees involved with selling online, such as website builder subscriptions, transaction fees, and third-party plugins.

For example, Wix’s pricing ranges from $17 to $159 per month (billed annually), but you’ll need to pay at least $29 per month to unlock ecommerce functionality. You can see a breakdown of Wix’s plans in the table below:

24/7 Shopping

An online store is open 24/7 and doesn’t need constant staff monitoring, meaning your business is accessible to customers when they need it. If you run a brick-and-mortar business, your sales are limited to opening hours.

If you’re worried about leaving your online store unattended, you can always install an AI chatbot to handle customer queries that come in outside of your standard working hours.

International Reach

Ecommerce enables international reach by connecting businesses with customers across different cities, states, and countries, without the geographical limits of a physical shop. Your online store’s address is global.

Wix’s ecommerce website builder can help you sell internationally with Wix Multilingual (to translate content into more than 180 languages), global SEO tools, international payment processing, and local currency conversion.

Personalized Experiences

Another benefit of ecommerce is the fact that you can gather useful customer data to personalize the shopping experience.

With Wix’s ecommerce and marketing tools, you can see your top paying customers, review where customers spend time on your site, assess returning customer behavior, and more.

This is hugely beneficial for businesses, since you can use this information to improve your content and marketing strategies. With this data, you can:

• Create personalized email campaigns
• Encourage loyalty with unique discounts
• Recommend relevant products to boost sales
• Retarget customers to avoid abandoned carts

Room To Grow Your Business

With ecommerce, it’s much easier to scale your business depending on your goals, whether you want to sell more products, increase your traffic allowance, or access more advanced tools. A physical store is limited by its footprint, unless you have the funds to expand or relocate to a bigger space.

For example, Wix’s starting ecommerce plan ($29 per month) includes up to 50,000 products, 50GB storage, five collaborators, access to Wix’s AI tools, and basic marketing and analytics, perfect for your new store.

As you grow with Wix, you can upgrade to the next tier ($39 per month), which unlocks 100GB storage, 10 collaborators, and advanced sales tools, such as unlimited “back in stock” notifications.

Technology Integration

With an online business, it’s easier to install and roll out new technology or software to improve the site and customer journey. For example, a new AI tool to help you streamline marketing campaigns, or accounting software to simplify workflows and save you time.

Naturally, ecommerce also has its challenges, with online sellers facing common pain points, such as competition and US tariff rates.

Competitive Landscape

If you operate a brick-and-mortar store in your town, you’re competing with a select number of shops in the same area. With ecommerce, that number is impossible to measure, and it’s increasing all the time — there’s no limit to how many stores can operate on this digital street.

As more ecommerce businesses pop up, make sure your business finds gaps in the market to really stand out. After all, there could be hundreds of businesses selling the same type of product as you, so what sets you apart from the rest?

Quality Control

Quality control can be a challenge in ecommerce models, like dropshipping or print-on-demand, where the business owner doesn’t handle the physical inventory directly. This can result in unhappy customers if they receive a damaged, faulty, or incorrect product.

You can avoid this by producing, storing, and delivering the products yourself, but this can be a lot of additional work, especially if your business has a large catalog of goods.

Delivery and Shipping

Customers expect to receive their orders quickly and without a hitch — how your products are shipped and delivered can really impact a customer’s first impression of your brand.

To ensure smooth delivery and shipping, I recommend:

• Using reliable shipping services, such as USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL
• Clarifying shipping times to customers can help manage expectations
• Offering local delivery or store pickup — it’s nice to give customers more options at checkout if possible
• Keeping track of orders, so if an order gets lost, you can quickly find a solution to avoid further delay
• Requesting feedback following an order — ask customers to share how they found the experience so you can make improvements if needed

Security Risks

If your site lacks basic security measures, you run the risk of damaging your reputation, losing revenue, and facing legal battles. Customers need to know their personal and financial details are safe when shopping with your online business.

Thankfully, most ecommerce platforms include security as a standard feature. As an example, if you make an ecommerce website with Wix, you’ll get these security measures included:

• HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)
• SSL certificate
• Anti-fraud protection
• 24/7 monitoring

Customer Service

Navigating customer queries and complaints can be challenging for any business, but even more so for ecommerce stores, since you can’t offer support face-to-face.

To meet customer needs and demands quickly, it’s important to offer a variety of contact options (such as a contact form, AI-powered live chat, and social media DMs).

You have to go the extra mile when delivering online support, and remember to respond to bad reviews and comments, as well as the good. This can really help your brand reputation and show that your business cares enough to listen to its customers.

Staying on Top of Trends

Should your business jump on trends? Trends are constantly evolving and changing, so it can be difficult to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s popular.

Staying aware of trends can help your business stay ahead of the competition, so I recommend checking across your social media accounts to see what your audience is engaging with the most, and see what trends your competitors are jumping on.

But remember, it’s only worth hopping on the latest viral product or video for social media if it’s relevant to your target audience and business.

The three main types of ecommerce business are B2C, DTC, and B2B. These models describe different ways that businesses can sell online:

• B2C (business-to-consumer): Your business sells products or services to customers
• DTC (direct-to-consumer): Your business sells directly to a customer, without going through a middleman, such as a retailer or wholesaler
• B2B (business-to-business): Your business sells products or services to other businesses

If you picture an online store (or look at these ecommerce website examples), it’ll typically be operating a B2C or DTC ecommerce model — B2C is the most widely adopted ecommerce model globally. DTC is more hands-on and often used by retail businesses, but it’s also a great option if you’re selling via socials, like TikTok Shop or Pinterest.

You’re also not fixed to one type of ecommerce business for life. Brick-and-mortar stores can expand into ecommerce and online stores can explore other forms of selling online, such as dropshipping or B2B.

You can sell a variety of products or services as an ecommerce business, from physical items to online educational courses. Typically, these are the main types of products to sell:

A website builder is a great one-stop shop to build, manage, and grow your business — it’s what I’d recommend to anyone looking to create and grow brand awareness. But, for more casual sellers, online marketplaces help you reach active shoppers and social media is a great low-cost option for sellers with engaged communities.

To get set up as an ecommerce business, you need to consider where you want to sell online:

How Do I Choose the Best Ecommerce Platform?

Ideally, your business should adopt a multichannel selling strategy to optimize your chances of making a sale, but you should look out for factors such as scalability, price (and hidden fees!), SEO, sales features, support, mobile-friendliness, and ease of use when choosing a platform.

Using an ecommerce website builder, like Wix, is the best option for any type of business. Not only can you design your site and set up marketing campaigns (with the support of AI), but you can also integrate your store with online marketplaces and connect your store with your brand’s social media accounts.

Wix partnered with Alibaba in 2025, providing merchants with direct access to the marketplace without needing to install a separate app. Of the top ecommerce website builders we tested, Wix is the only one to offer this. Plus, with Wix, everything is handled in one dashboard, making it easy for you to monitor performance, sales, and engagement.

If you want to start your own ecommerce business and build an online store, follow the steps below:

1. Register for a business license
2. Determine your niche
3. Set your branding
4. Make or source your products
5. Set up your online store (you can use Wix’s AI website builder, Wix Harmony)
6. Build your community

Most importantly, do your research before getting started to ensure there’s demand for your products. Look at what competitors are doing in your market, pinpoint your target audience (recognize their pain points and needs), and find ways for your business to stand out.

The world of ecommerce is vast and constantly growing, but it’s a welcoming environment for all kinds of sellers, from beginners to industry titans. If you’re looking to sell products or services online, remember to keep an eye on the common challenges, such as quality control and delivery, to reap the benefits of operating a 24/7 storefront.