E-commerce, regarded as a major employment growth area, involves the buying and selling of goods over the Internet.

The Welsh college will train e-commerce pioneers

"In America there are 450,000 job vacancies in e-commerce," said course director Dr Kelvin Palmer.

"It's a major employment growth area in Britain, but until now there has been no master's degree in the subject.

"The course is aimed at business-to-business trading and business to consumers and will include marketing, advertising, sales and customer services."

Expected sales rise

In Britain 5% of sales are currently done via the Internet. But experts predict this figure is set to rise to 8% in the near future.

Swansea Institute is offering a total of 12 scholarships for the master's degree programme, which has been made possible by European funding.