Abstract: An electronic advertising and purchasing system and method is implemented in a global computer network to enable a consumer to purchase or gain additional information about advertised goods or services while the consumer remains connected to a hosting web site. The hosting server includes a sessions manager that sends instructions to a plurality of consumer workstations to display a web page from the hosting web site. The hosting server also includes an ad generator to send a banner applet to the consumer workstations to promote one or more goods or services in banners on the web page. The banners contain links that sends a request to the banner applet for additional product information, or for an order form to permit the consumer to purchase the advertised goods or services. The banner applet provides data to the consumer workstations without causing the workstations to query the hosting server, or terminate, or suspend their active sessions with the sessions manager.