The history and evolution of E-commerce

Before the birth of the famous internet, back in the archaic days of the Arpanet, e-commerce began their impact on the way a business is run. The history of this vast improving system is how information technology has transformed business processes into how it is today.

The best and simplest example would be shopping, which I am sure is a popular mode for relaxing and could be done anytime, anywhere, even in your pajamas! Now this brings us back to the invention of the very old notion of ‘buy and sell’ electricity, cables, computers, modems and the internet of course! Started in 1991, it was made possible to do shopping online and since then, hundreds and thousands of businesses started to venture into this promising approach-the E-commerce.

Now, before I continue, let us define what e-commerce is. E-commerce is a process of the execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. It was founded in the late 1970s and the ability to use technologies appeared.

During 1994 e-commerce started to become popular. It took four years for it to develop the security protocols and DSL which allowed rapid access and connection to the internet. During the 2000s, e-commerce changed the process of purchasing of available goods and services over the internet using secure connections and electronic payment services. Even when the dot-com collapse in year 200 did not stop people from using e-commerce. ‘Brick and mortar’ retailers recognize the advantages of electronic commerce and started to add such capabilities to their websites. At the end of 2001, the largest form of e-commerce, the B2B made $70billion in transactions. The chart shows in 2007, e-commerce sales amount to 3.4% of the total sales.

We can’t run away from sires like Amazon.com and Ebay when talking bout e-commerce. They are one of the 1^st few internet companies to allow electronic transactions and succeed. The 5 largest and most famous world wide internet retailers are Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. Fortune magazine, 2007 stated that dell as the 34^th largest company in the Fortune 500 list and 8^th on its annual top 20 list of the most successful and admired companies in USA.

Lastly, ecommerce is a history of a new, virtual world which is evolving according to the customers’ advantage. The evolution of this will never end. As long as technology breaths in the air, it will continue improving for the better. E-commerce has come a long way, evolving from organizations billboards to a fully functional personalized shopping experience. Although the road was bumpy from 1994-2004, it has now become a crucial part of Internet pioneers and technology innovators.

Rich Riley once said, “specifically, and important milestone in the evolution of e-commerce is the development of affordable, easy-to-use e-commerce solutions that have enabled hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs to transform their unique ideas into organizations successful business.”

Some examples of some evolutions are like, in Abu Dhabi, police have installed a number of automated machines in different shopping mails of the city owing to which some electronic services become available. The network got the name Sahei (facile) and is known as e-service and payment system. There are other examples found in www.ecommerce_journal.com/

In conclusion, e-commerce today is still at its infancy. Invisible shopping carts, annoyance-free assistance and no lines at the register and many more benefits awaits the future of e-commerce. There is a bright future for it. Besides narrowcasting, there are also services like new quantum processors that will increase the speed of computers twice as fast and HDTV’s popularity allows us to surf and shop on their television sets.

by Liew yilin