E-commerce is the process of buying and selling of products or services over the Internet and other computer networks, most often via the World Wide Web. E-commerce is a paperless exchange of business data and information by using communication tools such as email, and to access data by using shared database and electronic bulletin boards. They are commonly referred to as electronic commerce or eCommerce. It is a subset of e-business, which defines not just buying and selling of goods and services, but also servicing customers, collaborating with business partners and conducting electronic transactions within an organisation. The concept of e-commerce is to help consumers to reduce costs while improving the quality of goods and services and increasing the speed of service delivery. E-commerce can be classified into four main categories, which are Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Business (C2B) and Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C).
E-commerce was first developed in the early 1970s. In the early development, e-commerce was meant to assist in the execution of commercial transaction electronically such as the usage of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). They include tasks such as sending purchase orders or invoices electronically to transact business. EDI is used to transfer of date and information from one organization to another. EFT is used to perform financial transactions electronically from one trading partner to another trading partner.
In the 1980s, the introduction of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking were accepted and also a form of e-commerce. Two types of application were widely adopted in the late 1980s, which are electronic mail (e-mail) and groupware. From 1990s onwards, e-commerce consisted enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing. In 2000s, e-commerce grew rapidly and became commercialized in the business world. Many companies started promoting their products and services through World Wide Web.
Major events that have evolved e-Commerce are:
In the year 1984, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) made a move forward by standardizing their format allowing companies to interact with each other. The standard known as ASC X12 also enhances the stability and reliability in transferring large amounts of transactions.
In the year 1992, the creation of Mosaic web-browser were brought to the world. It was the first graphical web browser where images and text are displayed in the same window. Mosaic web-browser was considered to have led to the Internet boom in the 1990s.
In the year 1994, the Mosaic web-browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser known as Netscape. They have developed the Secure Sockets Layer Protocol (SSL) for used to secure online communication by encrypting the web content. Businesses are starting to venture e-commerce; this includes the first bank that offers online internet banking services, Stanford Federal Credit Union.
In the year 1995, two e-commerce giants were launched; Amazon and eBay. Amazon started as a business selling books online but later diversified to sell more products online. Whereas eBay was an online auction site which provides a medium for buyers and sellers to transact.
The development of DSL has also contributed to the evolution of e-commerce. The idea first come about in the late 1980s and the equipment to perform the task were designed in 1993. DSL allowed a faster internet connection and provided an always-on connection to users has changed the user’s behaviour over internet. As DSL encourages users to surf internet more, it also affects users to be more exposed to e-commerce. Due to the development of DSL, AOL had made sales of 1.2 billion over the 10 week holiday season from online sales in year 1998.
In the year 1999, Napster was founded. It was an application that allows users to share their music files online. However, this had led to massive copyright infringements. This results in the shutdown of the service under court order.
In conclusion, the growth of e-commerce is significant. In just nine years, it has already reached worldwide and has become a crucial function to every business around the world.
Please refer to the links below for further clarification:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_commerce - All about E-Commerce
http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html - History of E-Commerce
http://ict.cdimm.org/man/engleza/ecomm03.pdf - History & Evolution of E-Commerce
http://newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu/courses/nmpspring01/brown/Revstream/history.htm - E-Commerce as a Revenue stream, History
http://www.flysyk02.netfirms.com/Ecommerce/History.htm - History of E-Commerce
By Lishi
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