History of E- Commerce

There were several key incidents in the history of e-commerce. The first one was came from the development of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). EDI is a set of standards developed in the 1960’s in order to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. At first there was several different EDI formats that business could use, so companies still might not be able to interact with each other. However, in 1984 the ASC X12 standard became stable and reliable in transferring large amounts of transactions.

The next major incident occurred in 1992 when the Mosaic web-browser was available, it was the first ‘point and click’ browser. The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser, Netscape, which allowed easier access to electronic commerce. Besides that, the development of DSL was another key moment in the development to of e-commerce. DSL allowed quicker access and a persistent connection to the Internet.

The development of Red Hat Linux was also the major step in electronic commerce growth. Linux gave users another choice in a platform other then Windows that was reliable and open-source. Microsoft faced with this competition needed to invest more in many things including electronic commerce.

Napster was an online application used to share music files for free. This application was yet another major step in e-commerce. Many consumers used the site and were dictating what they wanted from the industry. A major merger, in early 2000, between AOL and Time Warner was another major push for electronic commerce. The merger, worth $350 million, brought together a major online company with a traditional company. In February 2000 hackers attacked some major players of e-commerce, including Yahoo, Ebay and Amazon. In light of these attacks the need for improved security came to the forefront in the development of electronic commerce.
It is predicted that that revenues, up until 2006, will grow 40% to 50% yearly. Expectations of higher prices as well as larger profits for e-commerce business are also present. Also, we will see a larger presence by experienced traditional companies, such as Wal-Mart, on the Internet. It is believed companies in general will take this mixed strategy of having stores online and offline in order to be successful. It can be seen that there will be a large growth in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce, which is the online selling to individuals. However, B2C electronic commerce may be the most recognizable there are different varieties.
Today the largest electronic commerce is Business-to-Business (B2B). Businesses involved in B2B sell their goods to other businesses. In 2001, this form of e-commerce had around $700 billion in transactions. Other varieties growing today include Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) where consumers sell to each other, for example through auction sites. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is another form of e-commerce that allows users to share resources and files directly.

Timeline
1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.
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 do 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.
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.
2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million.
2008: US eCommerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17
percent over 2007.