E-Commerce: The history and evolution of e-commerce

One of the most popular activities on the net is shopping. You can shop through web anytime and anywhere no matter you are wearing pajamas. E-commerce is a selling and buying process that done electronically through technology. Generally, e-commerce can be done with electricity, cable, computer, modem and the internet. E-commerce was started to be use in 1991 when the web are open for commercial use. From that time, thousand of businesses are started in the web and many of the people gain profit through this e-commerce.

At first, e-commerce was developed with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which were introduced in late 1970s. These two applications enable user to send or receive business document like purchasing order, sale invoice and so on. With the rapid growth of e-commerce, credit card, automated teller machine (ATM), telephone banking, airline reservation system were introduced in 1980-1990. Online shopping was introduced by Micheal Aldrich in 1979. However, this was widely used transport manufacturers such as Ford, Peugeot-Talbot, General Motors and Nissan.

1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.

1991: commercial enterprise on the Internet was strictly prohibited. Although the Internet became popular worldwide around 1994, it took about five years to introduce security protocols and DSL allowing continual connection to the Internet.
1992: J.H. Snider and Terra Ziporyn publish Future Shop: How New Technologies Will Change the Way We Shop and What We Buy. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312063598.

1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offers pizza ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opens. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials also becomes commercially available, as well as cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 is introduced in late 1994 SSL encryption that made transactions secure.

1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio start broadcasting. Dell and Cisco begin to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.

1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
1999: Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to eCompanies, which was purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster launches. ATG Stores launches to sell decorative items for the home online.
2000: The dot-com bust. A lot of European and American business companies offered their services through the World Wide Web. Since then people began to associate a word "ecommerce" with the ability of purchasing various goods through the Internet using secure protocols and electronic payment services.

2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Niche retail companies CSN Stores and NetShops are founded with the concept of selling products through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.