The History Of Ecommerce

Putting your business online is the latest way for you to become successful.

For the first time ever online sales over took those of the high street with total sales worth 31.5 Billion.
So if you are not trying to take advantage of this then you are missing out on the chance of growth. By using the online community you can connect to over 2.3 billion people that are all willing to buy your products if you have what they want.

This is what ecommerce is all about. It is the buying and selling of products over the internet.
The world's first online shop was created in 1979 by Michael Aldrich and then 2 years later Thomson Holidays UK becomes the first Business-to-Business (B2B) online shopping company.

These were the origins of ecommerce and people began trading over different networks as the internet had not been invented yet. In 1984 Tesco became the first Business-to-Customer (B2C) online and Mrs Snowball becomes the world's first online home shopper.
This is when ecommerce took off as people could now shop from home online if they had a computer although these were rare. Over the next few years businesses began using networks to their advantage and in 1990 the internet was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. It then took 2 years for the first graphical, fully iconic navigated online shop which was invented by Terry Brownlee. As years went by more online shops developed and different browsers developed which open different opportunities to people.
In 1994 Pizza Hut began offering online ordering for its food and magazine companies began offering online subscriptions which became a huge success.
In 1995 a huge step was taken towards what we have today as CompuServe let WH Smith complete the first online secure transaction which was by Paul Stanfield who brought a book.
Although this may not seem huge it enabled companies to begin making secure payments without the risk of fraud and losing out on money.

As well as this CompuServe became the first national online shopping service for the UK and this service feature companies like WH Smith, Tesco and Virgin.

As well as this in this year Amazon was launched as were the first 24 hour fully online radio stations which were called Radio HK and Net radio.
Soon after this happen eBay was founded making 1995 a big year for the ecommerce that be now have today. In 1998 PayPal was founded and from then secure transactions online become even more secure.
This is still used today and is the biggest payment transaction website in the world.
Electronic postage stamps became available during this year as well and with these you would just simply print them off and use them.

Then in 1999 media sharing website Napster was launched and this was one the biggest innovations for online media ecommerce. 3 years after this eBay took a huge step in its future by acquiring PayPal for a reported $1.5 Billion and this began the link between the two services.
In 2003 Amazon recorded its first yearly profits and it was an example how the internet had finally become a source of profit for businesses. From here other businesses began to take note that they could become successful from using the internet.
Internet sales for that year topped £30bn in the USA who were the main users of online shopping during that time.

Since then ecommerce has grown significantly and is the most important thing for many businesses.

Ecommerce also enables anyone to start and run a successful business from their own home.