If you go to a shopping mall to look for a shirt, you may go into several stores. Your shopping experience includes checking the quality, size, color, and price of different shirts at different stores. Once you have made a decision to buy a shirt, you place it in your shopping cart and continue shopping at that store. When you are done shopping, you take your purchases to the store's cashier. To pay for your transaction, you could provide the cashier with your credit card. eCommerce uses shopping metaphors to define the process of gathering product information and purchasing those products over the Internet. The same metaphors are used for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions. When reviewing products on the Internet, you are online shopping. You can place products you are interested in purchasing in your online shopping cart. When you are done shopping and are ready to buy, you can click a purchase button and be moved to an online purchasing site. To complete the transaction, you need to supply the online purchasing site with your shipping address and credit card number.

Online shopping provides information and activities that give your customers the knowledge to make informed buying decisions A consumer who is interested in purchasing a car may research the prices and features of cars online. They may visit the Volkswagen site to find information on the Passat, the Toyota site to learn about the Camry, and the Ford site to investigate the Taurus. They may also visit one of the online car aggregators like carpoint.com to get pricing and product information on many different cars. The Internet provides them with an easy way to shop for different products so they can compare features, functionality, and price online. For business-to-business transactions, online shopping may entail an Extranet (private web site) that includes information that business partners may need to conduct business. A manufacturer may provide standard product copy, product pictures, logos, case studies, technical specifications, and product availability on their site. A retailer may go to this site to download a product copy and a graphic for a mailer or newspaper insert. By accessing a business partner's online shopping site, the retailer can be assured that the picture matches the product and that the product will be available in the necessary quantities for promotion. Online shopping for business-to-business transactions speeds up the information-gathering and access process, providing timely access to accurate information.

Online purchasing is defined as the infrastructure to allow the purchase of products over the Internet. If a consumer is interested in buying office supplies, they might go to the Staples web site. There they can shop the site, choosing products and placing them in their online shopping basket. When they have found all the products they want to purchase, they can choose the Staples' online purchasing form to buy the products they have chosen.

A survey conducted by Zona Research of Redwood City, California of 100 American firms of over 500 employees, found that 80% used the Internet for marketing activities while only 10% engaged in online purchasing activities. Forty-five percent of the companies surveyed said they planned to implement online purchasing in the next two years.