EC rockzz: The History and Evolution of E-commerce

Electronic Commerce

Definition
Electronic Commerce (EC) is the process of using computer networks to buy, sell, or exchange products, services, or information. In other words, EC is a modern business methodology that addresses the needs of organizations, merchants, and consumers to cut costs while improving the quality of goods and services as well as the increasing speed of service delivery through Internet.

History
In the early 1970s, the development of EC applications are started with electronic funds transfer (EFT). EPT refers to the computer-based systems used to perform financial transactions electronically. The use of these applications was limited to financial institutes, large corporations, and some daring businesses.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) was developed in the late 1970s to improve the limitation faced in EFT. The pool of participating company is enlarged from financial institutions to manufacturers, retailers, services, and others, by the use of EDI.

An Interorganizational System (IOS) allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations in order to reach a desired supply-chain management system, which enables the development of competitive organizations.

From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.
The term ‘electronic commerce’ was coined in the early 1990s when Internet became commercialized and users began flocking to participate in the World Wide Web. Then, EC applications were rapidly expanded.

Possibly EC is introduced from the Telephone Exchange Office. The earliest example of many-to-many EC in physical goods was the Boston Computer Exchange, a marketplace for used computers launched in 1982. The first online information marketplace, including online consulting, was likely the American Information Exchange, another pre-Internet online system was introduced in 1991.

Evolution
Many innovative applications, ranging from direct online sales to e-learning experiences had been developed since 1995. Despite that, every organization in the world has a Web site.
In 1999, the emphasis of EC shifted from B2C to B2B. The stress of EC transferred from B2B to B2E, e-government, e-learning, and m-commerce in 2001. Later the social networks, I-commerce and wireless applications started to rise in 2005.
E-commerce will undoubtedly continue to shift and change in the future.

Here is the list of some EC events:

1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992
Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995

Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.