ThE HiStOry And EvoLuTioN Of E-CoMmErcE

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce. E-commerce is a type of business model, or segment of a larger business model, that enables a firm of individual to conduct business over an electronic network, typically the internet. Electronic commerce operates in all four of the major market segments: business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer and consumer to business. It consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic system such as the internet and other computer networks. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange ( EDI ), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the Word Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.

There are several steps in the history and evolution of e-commerce:

The 1st step is development of Electronic Data Interchange ( EDI ), EDI is a set of standard developed in 1960s to exchange the business information and execute the electronic transactions.

The 2nd step is development of online retailing. In 1992, compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This is the first time that the people are able to buy things off their computer.

The 3rd step is Development of web browser. In 1992, Mosaic web browser was available and it was the first “point and click” web-browser. After that, Netscape browser was introduced in 1994. It provides the users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

The 4th step is the two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched in 1995, there are Amazon.com and Ebay.com.

The 5th step is Development of Digital Subscriber Line ( DSL ). DSL allowed quicker access and a persistent connection to the internet. This stimulates people spend more time and money online.

The 6th step is Retailing spending over the internet in 1999 business.com was sold for US $7.5 million, which was purchased in 1997 for US $150,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster was launched.

The 7th step is Hacker's attack the e-commerce players. In February of 2000, some major players of e-commerce such as Yahoo, ebay and Amazon were attacked by the hackers. The attacks represent the need to improve the security in the development of e-commerce.