The Internet is rapidly pushing us into a global marketplace. The barriers that once isolated countries and people in the past are being blown away, and in the future so will businesses who bury their heads in the sand and pretend that none of this is really happening. The following are the current EC statistics and some of the forecasts: Worldwide EC business expected to touch $500 billion by 2001 377 million users of the internet by 2000 Indian EC revenues expected to change from lcrore in '97 to 1200 crores in 2001. 2 million strong users (500000 registered accounts)