More and more people have now got computers in the United Kingdom and many of them are on the Internet (at last count around 20 million*). Of these half have already shopped online and more are forecast to do so. The number of people in the UK with Internet access is ever increasing and so is the number of on-line shoppers.

Almost every company in the UK, big and small alike, have web sites and some have started to buy into the lucrative outlet of on-line selling. With the large numbers of people ready to buy products on-line an on-line shop has never been so rewarding.

*See NetStatistica for the latest numbers.

Types of on-line shopping:

Business to customer

This is the type of on-line shop where a consumer is on a business's commercial website and buys a product. They would give their name, address, credit card details etc. then the company would post them the product they had ordered.

Business to business

This is when a shop or business wants to order in some products from another company, e.g. a shirt company selling mass amounts of shirts to a clothes shop. This sort of a site is different to that the public has access to.

The Internet Services Team at Maple Systems can build sites to suit either type of on-line shopping, business to customer and business-to-business.

Sources of information

The E-Commerce Times - a major US site for news and information about e-commerce. The site also offers details of products and services, a section devoted to small business and publications info: http://www.ecommercetimes.com

Global Information Network - the search engine for global business. Includes world regions, trade information, resources and business segments: http://www.ginfo.net