History & evolution of e-commerce

One of the most common activities on the Web is shopping. This buying and selling of products and services electronically over the Internet is known as electronic commerce, or more commonly called e-commerce. Initially, e-commerce meant the carrying out of commercial transaction electronically with the aid of technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), which allowed users to send commercial documents and do electronic transactions. For broader definition, e-commerce includes not only buying and selling of goods and services, but also servicing customers, collaborating with business partners and carrying out transaction electronically within the organisation. The history of e-commerce began before the first Internet connection was introduced. There were several significant steps in the history of e-commerce. The first step began with the development of EDI in 1968, which is a set of standard developed to exchange business information and do transaction electronically. In the beginning, many companies were not able to work with each other electronically because there were several different EDI formats. Nevertheless, in 1984, the ASC X12 became the reliable standard for handling large amounts of transactions. Few years later in 1992, Mosaic, the first point-and-click web browser was introduced. Based on Mosaic, Netscape, the first downloadable browser which enabled users to be involved in e-commerce, was then developed in 1994. The development of Netscape played a significant role in the history of e-commerce. The next key step took place in 1998 when Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) was developed. DSL offered higher bandwidth and allowed users to get connected to the Internet persistently. During the 10 weeks holiday season in 1998, AOL generated more than $1.2 billion in sales from online transactions. This was followed by the development of Red Hat Linux, which gave the users an option to choose between Windows and the reliable open-sourced Linux. In 1999, Napster, which was an online application that allowed users to share music files for free, was founded. As its popularity increased, users started to voice out what they desired from the industry for the first time. Another major step in e-commerce occurred in 2000, when AOL merged with Time Warner. The merger, which worth $350 million, combined a newly developed online company with an established traditional company. In February 2000, hackers attacked some of the biggest giants of e-commerce, such as Yahoo, eBay and Amazon.com. This awakened users to the need for a higher level of Internet security. The evolution of e-commerce can be summarised as follows: 1968: development of EDI 1984: standardisation of EDI through ASC X12 1992: creation of Mosaic browser 1994: arrival of Netscape 1998: introduction of DSL 1999: development of Red Hat Linux 1999: foundation of Napster 2000: merger of AOL and TimeWarner.


The evolution of e-commerce can be summarised as follows:
1968: development of EDI
1984: standardisation of EDI through ASC X12
1992: creation of Mosaic browser
1994: arrival of Netscape
1998: introduction of DSL
1999: development of Red Hat Linux
1999: foundation of Napster
2000: merger of AOL and Time Warner



References:
Electronic commerce
History of Ecommerce
History of E-commerce