1. An electronic commerce system for facilitating an electronic commerce transaction, the electronic commerce system comprising: a plurality of seller databases, wherein each seller database is associated with a corresponding seller and different from other seller databases in the plurality of seller databases, including product data for one or more products; a global content directory server coupled with the plurality of seller databases, the global content directory server providing a plurality of buyer computers access to the plurality of seller databases, the global content directory server comprising: a storage medium stored therein a directory structure comprising a plurality of hierarchically organized product classes, each product class categorizing a plurality of products and defining one or more attributes of the products categorized in the product class, wherein one or more pointers are associated with each product class, each pointer identifying the seller database in the plurality of seller databases in which product data enabling a product transaction is stored for products categorized in the product class; and a server search interface configured to communicate, in response to a selection of a product class by one of the plurality of buyer computers, a search query for product data to the plurality of seller databases identified by one or more pointers associated with the selected product class; and in response to communicating the search query for product data to the plurality of seller databases identified by one or more pointers associated with the selected product class, receive address information associated with a seller database associated with a seller of the selected product, the seller database including product data for the selected product, wherein one of the plurality of buyer computers is configured to communicate with the seller associated with the seller database to conduct a commerce transaction relating to the selected product using the received address information.