Development Of E-Commerce

As more and more people started turning to the internet for their communication needs, more innovations kept surfacing in the virtual world. Entrepreneurs were quick to catch on and realized the advantages offered by Internet business or E Commerce: it was so much cheaper to have your own website for selling your products than run up huge bills in rents and wages. I’m sure nearly every one of you has bought or perhaps even sold something or the other over the internet, at some point of time.  Most online stores have extremely easy-to-use storefront templates. Adding or editing items in the Shopping Cart is simple, and fun.

Today several Online Stores offer tips (garments stores especially) and answer queries through Live chat. This way, a sort of personal interaction is also maintained.

So how did it all start?

It has had a presence in some form or other:

• Funds Transfer: Electronic transfer of money between organizations, particularly banks, was one of the ‘ancestors’ of E-Commerce as we know it today.
• Data Interchange: Involved electronic transfer of documents related to financial transactions
• IOS: Enabled the flow of information between organizations to facilitate the management of supply-chains.

We can roughly trace the origins of E-Commerce to the 1990s which saw the birth of WWW and browsers.

In 1992 surfers for the first time, had the opportunity to buy by typing on their screens; Compuserve offered retail products online. Two years later, Netscape’s Secure Socket Layer provided enhanced security for online transactions.  Their point and click feature also went a long way in promoting online shopping. But slow dial up connections and lengthy loading time often put off people who found popping over to the store and picking up stuff themselves a better alternative.

The very next year, the two E-Commerce giants, eBay and Amazon were launched. In 2011 December Amazon reported that they had set a record; 2.8 million items or 32 per second, were ordered that day. This came on the heels of the net profit they declared a couple of years earlier.

With the coming of DSL in 1998, people had faster and more economical access to the virtual world; not surprisingly they started spending more time online. The online retail spending in 1999 alone crossed $20 billion.

But no history is without its fair share of controversy, and E –Commerce is no exception. There’s one that is still raging even today. Yes, you guessed right: Napster Vs the Music Industry. They keep getting hit with lawsuit after lawsuit over their audio sharing feature. And of course you remember the Denial of Service Attacks in 2000.

Those who had young kids in 1998 would still not have forgotten the disaster that happened with ToysRus. There was no laughing Santa on Christmas day with their gifts; and they couldn’t complete deliveries the next year two.

But happily for E-Commerce entrepreneurs, since 2009-2010, shoppers seem to have put their faith back in E-Shopping. Maybe it’s the traffic and the lines, or the ease and simplicyt of shopping in PJswith coffee in hand; whatever the reason, E-Commerce revenues have been on the ascendant. It was estimated that over $ 300 billion would be raked in via online marketing by American firms alone.

Author Bio:- Andrea Walters, a freelance writer for My Tech Help – a leader in providing support across various products brands and tech devices for individuals and small businesses in need of instant tech help. click here