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E-commerce is the buying and selling of goods or services over the internet, where a customer browses a digital catalog, adds items to a cart, and pays through an online checkout instead of visiting a physical store. An online store works by connecting a customer-facing storefront (catalog, cart, checkout) to a back end that manages products, orders, and payments. This explainer walks through each piece so you can recognize how a site like batterysharks.com is put together.

E-commerce vs. physical retail

The core difference is where the transaction happens and what carries the "store."

Both models share the same goal: move a shopper from interest to a completed purchase. Online, every step is software.

The main storefront components

A typical storefront is built from four connected parts:

• Catalog — the list of products, each with its own page, price, and description. On batterysharks.com, product categories such as chargers and accessories are organized into browsable sections.
• Cart — a holding area for items a shopper intends to buy. The site exposes a cart at https://batterysharks.com/checkout/cart/, showing a running total (for example, "My Cart 0 $0.00" when empty).
• Checkout — the sequence where the shopper confirms items, enters shipping details, and pays.
• Payment — the mechanism that actually moves money. Battery Sharks lists Braintree as its payment platform.

The customer flow, step by step

1. Browse — the shopper lands on the store and moves through categories or search to find a product.
2. View a product — a product page shows details and price. For example, a category page like chargers-accessories/pro-charging-systems.html groups related items.
3. Add to cart — the item is placed in the cart, which updates the total.
4. Checkout — the shopper reviews the cart and proceeds to enter payment and delivery information.
5. Pay — the payment platform (Braintree here) processes the transaction.
6. Order confirmation — the store records the order in its back end and confirms it to the customer.

Each step has an expected result: browsing shows products, adding updates the cart, and paying produces an order. If any step fails, the purchase can't complete.

How a platform like Magento powers a store

Battery Sharks is built on Magento (originally developed by Varien), an e-commerce platform. A platform provides the reusable machinery a store needs:

• Product and category management
• Cart and checkout logic
• Payment integration (such as Braintree)
• Order storage and status tracking

This means the store owner configures products and settings rather than building cart and checkout code from scratch. The platform ties the storefront the customer sees to the back end that runs the business.

Front end vs. back end

It helps to separate what customers see from what operators manage.

• Front end (storefront): the catalog, product pages, cart, and checkout the shopper interacts with.
• Back end (admin): where products are added, prices set, orders reviewed, and payments configured.

The front end is the visible experience; the back end is the control room. A functioning store needs both, connected by the platform.

Common payment and order-management pieces

Beyond the catalog and cart, a working store typically needs:

• A payment gateway — to authorize and capture payments (Braintree on this site).
• Order management — to record each order, its items, and its status.
• Cart persistence — so a cart total is tracked as items are added or removed.

These pieces are what turn a set of product pages into a store that can actually take and fulfill orders.

What to take away

E-commerce is retail conducted online, and an online store is a chain of connected parts: a catalog to browse, a cart to hold items, a checkout to collect details, and a payment platform to complete the sale — all managed through a back end. Recognizing these pieces lets you look at any store, including one running on Magento like batterysharks.com, and see how a shopper moves from browsing to a completed order.