Abstract: A method for engaging in electronic commerce (e-commerce) over a network from an e-commerce site, comprises the steps of: storing data representing an inventory of items for sale at the e-commerce site; storing historic and active shopping lists of respective shoppers at the e-commerce site; providing logged on shoppers with a shopping list builder tool for constructing entirely new shopping lists and for constructing new shopping lists from said stored shopping lists; accepting completed active shopping lists from the logged on shoppers; consummating purchases of products on the accepted lists; and, delivering the purchased products to the shoppers. The method can further comprise the step of: storing authorization data enabling shoppers to purchase the items at the e-commerce site on credit. Shoppers can use the shopping list builder to create, modify, delete and merge named lists. A permanent cumulative shopping list can be compiled for each shopper.