A Brief History Of E-commerce

One of the most popular activities to do on the internet is shopping. Just about everyone does it. And why wouldn't they? It's easy and convenient. You can shop anytime you want, night or day, and you never have to change out of your pajamas if you don't want to. Just about every product you can possibly imagine is available on the internet, and through search engine shopping services, you have the ability to find the lowest prices for that product anywhere on earth and have it shipped right do your door. Internet shopping has become especially popular during the busy holiday season. Every year the numbers of online holiday sales rise to higher and higher levels.


 The increasingly popular activity of online shopping has a name. It is called e-commerce, which is short for electronic commerce. Though e-commerce refers to what we now think of as online consumerism, it had a different meaning thirty years ago. Originally, e-commerce meant the electronic facilitation of commercial transactions using technology like EDI or Electronic Date Interchange or Electronic Funds Transfer or EFT. Introduced in the late 1970s, these electronic methods allowed businesses to send documents like invoice or purchase orders electronically. In later decades, other forms of electronic commerce included things like automatic teller machines or ATM, credit cards, and telephone banking.

 However, the real beginning of e-commerce as we know it today didn't come until the pivotal year of 1990. That was the year that British computer scientist and MIT professor, Tim Berners-Lee, wrote the first web browser program and invented the World Wide Web. The year 1991 was also a pivotal year. Before 1991, commercial enterprise on the internet was strictly prohibited. In 1994 the internet began to become popular around the world, but it wasn't until about five years later that security protocols allowing continual connection to the internet were developed. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, more and more companies worldwide were offering their services over the internet. Today we associate the word "e-commerce" with the ability to purchase a variety of goods and services over the internet using secure protocols and electronic payment systems.

 Contemporary e-commerce is conducted in a variety of different ways. Though a large percentage of e-commerce is conducted electronically for virtual items such as web content, most e-commerce involves the transportation of real, physical items. Since the early 1990s, e-commerce has developed into the huge global internet market that exists today. Chances are every one of us has been a participant in the international phenomena of e-commerce.