The 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. Originally, electronic commerce meant the facilitation of commercial transactions electronically, using technology such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). These were both introduced in the late 1970s, allowing businesses to send commercial documents like purchase orders or invoices electronically. The growth and acceptance of credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM) and telephone banking in the 1980s were also forms of electronic commerce. From the 1990s onwards, electronic commerce would additionally include enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), data mining and data warehousing.

E-Commerce was birth out of the World-Wide-Web (WWW). Although many people use the terms WWW and Internet interchangeably, the WWW is just one of the many services available on the Internet. The aspect of the WWW actually is a relatively new aspect of the Internet. While the Internet was developed in the late 1960s, the WWW came into existence more than a decade ago - in the early 1990s. Since then, however, it has grown phenomenally to become the most widely used service on the Internet.

Businesses also have been engaging in a form of electronic commerce, known as electronic data interchange, for many years. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) occurs when business transmits computer-readable data in a standard format to another business. In the 1960s, businesses realized that many of the documents they exchange related to the shipping of goods - such as invoices, purchase orders, and bills of lading - and included the same set of information for almost every transaction. They also realized that they were spending a good deal of time and money entering these data into their computers, printing paper forms, and then re-entering the data on the other side of the transaction. By creating a set of standard formats for transmitting that information electronically, businesses were able to reduce errors, avoid printing and mailing costs, and eliminate the need to re-enter the data. Electronic Commerce has brought the solution to this problem and drastically altered the structure and process for business transactions across networks.