History and Evolution of E-commerce

Written by chiang on Sunday, June 15, 2008 at 3:32 AM

Electronic Commerce - Overview
E-commerce is a technology-mediated exchange between parties (individuals or organizations) as well as the electronically based intra-or inter-organizational activities that facilitate such exchanges. E-commerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks.

History and evolution of E-Commerce
The origin of commerce by exchanging goods occurred before recorded history, now commerce is a basic activity of goods trading and buying in everyday life. Entering into the electronic era, the way individuals and organizations do business and undertake commercial transactions have been changed. This indicates the movement towards electronic commerce. This means there is no paper work and physical interaction is limited, if at all. The emergence of electronic commerce started in the early 1970s with the earliest example electronic funds transfer (EFT), which allows organizations to transfer funds between one another electronically. Then another technology electronic interchange (EDI) was introduced. It helps to extend inter-business transactions from financial institutions to other types of business and also provides transactions and information exchanges from suppliers to the end customers. However, the early system development was limited to special networks such as large corporations and financial institutions, which are costly and complex to administer for small business. So EDI was not widely accepted as expected.
With the progress of Internet technology and a highly developed global Internet community, a strong foundation of prosperous electronic commerce continues to be built. During the 1990s, the Internet was opened for commercial use; it was also the period that users started to participate in World Wide Web (WWW), and the phenomenon of rapid personal computer (PCs) usage growth. Due to the rapid expansion of the WWW network; e-commerce software; and the peer business competitions, large number of dot-coms and Internet starts-ups appeared. Integrated with the commercialization of the Internet, Web invention, and PC networks these three important factors made electronic commerce possible and successful .

Here is the summary of Year and Event
1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASCX12. This
guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.
1992
Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.
1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.
1995
Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.
1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.
1999
Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.
2000

The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

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