In electronic commerce applications, it is often critical to transact within a short stipulated
time. In such applications, it is financially damaging to the customer if the transaction
does not complete within the stipulated time. In this paper, we describe various situations
in the stock market (one of the biggest electronic commerce markets) requiring real-time
transactions. We propose a methodology to enhance any electronic commerce protocol to a
real-time aware electronic commerce protocol. The methodology consists of two parts: the
first part adds a timestamp to some messages in the original protocol and the second part
augments the protocol with a mechanism to detect violation of real-time constraints. We
show that the methodology does not violate any of the useful properties present in existing
electronic commerce protocols. As a result, the methodology may be successfully applied to
any existing electronic commerce protocol. The methodology is illustrated by applying it to
an existing well known electronic commerce protocol, namely, the NetBill protocol.