E-Commerce Supporting Technologies - Computer, Computer Networking, Internet, Internet Connectivity

E-Commerce as the word suggests means doing business on the internet or on-line. The scope of business may involve:
o selling hard goods on-line such as a phone, computer or shoes
o Electronic goods such as e-books, mp3 music, software, graphics or pictures
o selling ideas or services
To sell the goods the merchant has to have a website or a virtual store on the internet for him to sell the goods on line. A prospective customer finds that site, buys goods on it, pays owner using a credit card or via other mode. Merchant receives payment and deliver the goods and supports the customer. Practically, that's e-commerce in its simplest sense.
In between those e-commerce transaction a lot technology are involve to complete the sale. For instance, the merchant has to design and build a website developed using a complex programming language called HTML. Merchant has to register a domain name to identity his business on the internet. All information and products from his on-line store or business are encoded and stored on the merchant's computer server or hosted by a third-party web hosting company. In order for the customer to find the merchant's site, he needs a computer that is in turn connected to a system popularly known as the internet, for him to be able to visit the merchant's site.
The Personal Computer in relation to E-Commerce
A PC or Personal Computer is a computing device or tool built around a microprocessor. It has lots of different parts -- memory, a hard disk, a modem, etc...That work together. It is also called general purpose equipment. General purpose means that you can do many different things with a computer. You can use it to type documents, send e-mail, browse the Web and play games.
On each own, the computer can be used to expedite the processing and storing of information such as word processing. It can also be made to transmit and receive information from other computers. These computers can talk and exchange information from each other through a common computer language or protocol. The PC is the most valuable and core-technology needed to drive E-Commerce and Internet Business.