Over the last few years, e-commerce has become increasingly popular, because it is one of the most effective mechanisms for informing the target audience and distributing goods and services. Gradually, digital technology and information and communication networks began to penetrate not only in everyday life of people, but also took an important place in the development of business and the national economy as a whole. The purpose of the article is to study the features of the e-commerce market. Taking into account and analyzing all the impact factors of e-commerce on the development of the economy, the study has demonstrated positive and negative aspects of the spreading of this process. The expansion of online business leads to changes that push innovation to progress, leading companies are able to follow innovations and encourage other companies to upgrade. E-commerce can help businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, overcome the barriers to their expansion, besides this, the opportunity for small businesses to engage in different business activities, with equal opportunities for cooperation and innovation, using alternative funding mechanisms. A particular challenge was to explore how developing e-commerce could be used for sustainable development and what benefits can be derived from it. It has been determined that highly developed countries perform a rapid pace of development of electronic trading mechanisms, and during the last years there has been a positive and stable dynamics of electronic commodity turnover, at the same time society is improving while adapting to the changes. Particular attention is paid to the European Union, which plays a leading role in the development of the digital economy and e-commerce, since this industry is an auxiliary instrument that serves to achieve diverse development goals for the European Union. In general, the EU can serve as an example for many countries of the world, because e-commerce actually accelerates development, boosts innovation progress and promotes the country's economy to a comparatively higher level.