History and Evolution of E-Commerce

History of ecommerce dates back to the invention of the very old notion of "sell and buy", electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet. At first, e-commerce appeared in the early 1970s when Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) was introduced, which enables the banks and financial institutions to transfer large amount of money with associated businesses. A new model in business computerization was devised in the late 1970s that is Electronic Data Exchange (EDI). EDI enables inter-company exchanges of documents, such as order forms for suppliers, invoices, customs forms, reimbursement receipts, stock inventories and etc. History of ecommerce is unthinkable without Amazon and EBay which were among the first Internet companies to allow electronic transactions. Thanks to their founders we now have a handsome ecommerce sector and enjoy the buying and selling advantages of the Internet. Currently there are five largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers: Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. According to statistics, the most popular categories of products sold in the World Wide Web are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics. By year 1992, the CompuServe offers online retail products to its customers. This has give people the first chance to buy things through their computers. The Netscape have arrived in year 1994 which providing users a simple browser to surf the internet and a safe online transaction technology which called Secure Sockets Layers. By the year of 1995, there have two biggest names in E-commerce are launched which are Amazon.com and eBay.com. By the year of 2000, the U.S. government extended the moratorium on the Internet taxes until at least year 2005. In year 2007, Fortune magazine have ranked Dell as the 34th largest company in the Fortune 500 list and 8th on its annual Top 20 list of the most successful and admired companies in the USA in recognition of the company’s business model.

References:
http://newmedia.medill.northwestern.edu/courses/nmpspring01/brown/Revstream/history.htm
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/history-e-commerce