An Internet-based electronic commerce (EC) enabled shopping system comprising: an Internet information server connected to the infrastructure of the Internet and supporting the hypertext transmission protocol (http); a Web-enabled client subsystem connected to the infrastructure of the Internet; and an EC-enabled WWW site comprising a plurality of interlinked HTML-encoded documents arranged and rendered to provide an electronic store environment for a consumer when served to the Web-enabled client subsystem, wherein the electronic store environment presenting a plurality of products for purchase and sale by an EC-enabled payment method supported over the Internet, wherein a Consumer Product Information Request (CPIR) enabling Server-side component tag, associated with each the product, is embedded within at least one of the HTML-encoded documents displayed on the Web-enabled client subsystem, and each the CPIR-enabling Server-side component tag being associated with a CPIR-enabling Server-side component encoded with a Universal Product Number (UPN) assigned to one the product, and whereby, when the consumer selects one the CPIR-enabling Server-side component tag, the associated CPIR-enabling Server-side component is automatically executed, enabling a search to be conducted against a product information database hosted on an Internet database server connected to the Internet, and the results from the search displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) served to and displayed on the Web-enabled client subsystem.