Ecommerce And Its Growth

What is e-commerce?

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We know that commerce includes buying and selling activities. When you buy a box of pencils from a stationary shop, you are taking part in a commercial activity. So is the shopkeeper. When you deposit your savings in your bank account, you are taking part in a banking activity. In each situation, you have to travel to the shop or the bank to complete the activity. But computers are changing all of that.

E-commerce (electronic commerce) allows us to take part in commercial and banking activities by using a computer and an internet connection. We can buy and sell things without having to leave our homes. We can operate our bank accounts while travelling on a bus. Electronic commerce combines communications, database management, and data security. By doing so, it allows us to access information about various products in a safe and convenient way. It also allows us to share sensitive information about our bank accounts and credit cards over the Internet.

E-commerce has been around for quite some time. The basic idea behind e-commerce is that people do not have to physically visit the market to buy goods and services: they can simply go to a website and select what they want to buy. The website displays descriptions of several product along with their prices. These websites also inform users how the goods will be delivered to them.

All of this has become possible because of the changes taking place not only in computers, but in banking as well. Let’s see how different fields have contributed to the growth of e-commerce time by time.

1970s

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Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was introduced. This allowed different businesses to share data across a computer network. This was the earliest concept of e-commerce. Businesses could share data with other banks.

1979

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An Englishman named Michael Aldrich invented a basic form of online shopping. This made it possible for customers to buy products by using a computer. It also made it easy for businesses to use computers to make their own purchases from other businesses.

1980s

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The use of credit cards and automated teller machines (ATMs) became common.

1990

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A British computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web enabled people to share data over the Internet. Because the Internet is capable of linking all the computers in the world into a single network, people could share data with anybody in the world who was connected to the Internet.

1994

The first web browser was introduced. A web browser is an application software that allows people to connect to the Internet and visit websites.

1998

Several e-commerce websites were launched. Most of these websites were created by young people in their twenties. They quickly became millionaires because of the popularity of online businesses. 

2000

This was a difficult period for online businesses. Several e-commerce websites went out of businesses.

2010

E-commerce activity became stable. The projection for e-commerce and online retail sales in the United States of America was $173 billion.

Thus the e-commerce nowadays is synonymous with the Web, and with the growth of Internet, it is becoming a more common method of doing business.