The Story of E-COMMERCE

At the beginning, the world was without appearance, people is living just to continue surviving in the world. Human then start to seek and demand for better life. But they do not have the leisure time to enjoy their life and buy the things they like. Until people start to use computer and internet, e-commerce becomes possible in 1991. Since then, thousands of businesses have started at web sites and online shopping has become the most popular activities on the Web.

At first, e-commerce means the process of carrying out commercial transactions electronically with the help of the technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) where user can have chance to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. Since 1970s, the ability to use these technologies appeared and allowed business companies and organizations to send commercial documentation electronically.

It took around four years to develop the security protocol such as HTTP and DSL which allowed rapid access and a persistent connection to the internet. Starting 2000 many company from United States and Western Europe starts their business in the World Wide Web (WWW). At this time the definition of e-commerce has change as the process of buying, selling or exchanging products, services and information by using computer networks.

When we mention about e-commerce, Amazon and Ebay comes next. Both of them are among the first company who allow electronic transaction. Nowadays, the top 5 worldwide Internet retailers are, Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. Base on the statistics, the most popular product in the WWW are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics.

According to a research conducted recently, the domain Amazon.com attracted approximately 615 million customers every year. The most popular feature of their web site is the review system where they can allow visitors to submit their reviews and rate any product on a rating scale from one to five stars. With this they are able to identify which product has the most demand. They are also well-known for their clear and user-friendly advanced search facility which enables visitors to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the database.

E-commerce is evolving according to the customer needs. People now not only can access to online shopping but also design their dream product such as shoes and cars.

By Cherly Khu