The history and evolution of E-commerce

The History of Ecommerce

E-commerce is one of the most popular activities on the Web is shopping. We as a customer can shop when leisure, anytime, and in our pajamas. Literally anyone can have their pages built to display their specific goods and services.

History of ecommerce dates back to the invention of the very old notion of “sell and buy”, electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet. Ecommerce became possible in 1991 when the Internet was opened to commercial use. Since that date thousands of businesses have taken up residence at web sites.

At first, the term ecommerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. The ability to use these technologies appeared in the late 1970s and allowed business companies and organizations to send commercial documentation electronically.

In 1994, the Internet began to advance in popularity among the general public, but it took approximately four years to develop the security protocols (for example, HTTP) and DSL which allowed rapid access and a persistent connection to the Internet.

In 2000 a great number of business companies in the United States and Western Europe represented their services in the World Wide Web. At this time the meaning of the word ecommerce was changed. People began to define the term ecommerce as the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services. Although the dot-com collapse in 2000 led to unfortunate results and many of ecommerce companies disappeared, the “brick and mortar” retailers recognized the advantages of electronic commerce and began to add such capabilities to their web sites (e.g., after the online grocery store Webvan came to ruin, two supermarket chains, Albertsons and Safeway, began to use ecommerce to enable their customers to buy groceries online). At the end of 2001, the largest form of ecommerce, Business-to-Business (B2B) model, had around $700 billion in transactions.

According to all available data, ecommerce sales continued to grow in the next few years and, by the end of 2007, ecommerce sales accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales.
Ecommerce has a great deal of advantages over “brick and mortar” stores and mail order catalogs. Consumers can easily search through a large database of products and services. They can see actual prices, build an order over several days and email it as a “wish list” hoping that someone will pay for their selected goods. Customers can compare prices with a click of the mouse and buy the selected product at best prices.

Evolution of E-commerce

E-commerce has evolved from online billboards to a fully functional, personalized shopping experience over the past decade. While there were admittedly a few bumps along the road, the path from 1994 through the 2004 holiday shopping season is full of crucial milestones of Internet pioneers and technology innovators.

In 2000s, people began to define the term ecommerce as the process of purchasing of goods and services available over the Internet using secure connections and electronic payment services. There were a great number of business companies in United States and Western Europe represented their services in the world wide web (WWW).

In the beginning, the Internet was characterized by slow dial-up connections and online billboards. Netscape came on the scene in 1994 with its point-and-click Web browser that opened the door to the billion-dollar revenues e-tailers enjoy today. Two of the first online purveyors were, of course, eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN)
Looking at Amazon's evolution offers a pretty clear picture of the evolution of e-commerce, according to Nielsen//Netratings (Nasdaq: NTRT) senior retail analyst Heather Daugherty.
"Amazon has been around since almost day one," Daugherty said. "They were the first ones to offer one-click ordering that people now expect to find. Although Amazon certainly had a lot of skepticism from the street as to when it was going to become profitable, the company kept at it."