In her humble attempt to expand her business territory, Oluwaseun Olyaniyan, a dynamic business woman based in the United States Of America, has finally launched the online store version of her enterprise LLC STG GIFTS SHOP.
The online store that showcases a series of collections is designed by Web Engineering Consult to meet the global consumer’s daily needs both indoor and outdoor.
Collections such as fitness and health, consumer electronics, ladies’ wear, men’s wear, children’s educational materials, smart watches, jewels, and more are now active in the store, purchasable from any part of the world, and drop shopping from strategic warehouses in selected countries.
VISIT STG GIFTS SHOP ONLINE STORE AT
www.stggiftsshop.com
The History Of E-Commerce
It started over 40 years ago when the introduction of early technology like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and teleshopping in the 1970s paved the way for the modern-day e-commerce store as we know it today.
The history of e-commerce is closely intertwined with the history of the internet. Online shopping became possible when the Internet was opened to the public in 1991. Amazon was one of the first e-commerce sites in the US to start selling products online and thousands of businesses have followed since.
The convenience, safety, and enjoyable user experience of e-commerce have improved exponentially since the inception of online shopping. In his article, we will discuss some of the key players and milestones of e-commerce.
What is Ecommerce?
E-commerce, or electronic commerce, is the buying and selling of products or services via the Internet. For many Americans, e-commerce is something we participate in on a daily basis, like making an online bill payment or purchasing from an online seller. E-commerce can take many forms and involve different transactions. For an in-depth look at the impact of e-commerce and the different types of online shopping, check out our article on the definition of e-commerce.
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When Was Online Shopping Invented?
Online shopping was invented in pioneered in 1979 by entrepreneur Michael Aldrich in the United Kingdom.
Aldrich was able to connect a modified domestic television to a real-time multi-user transaction processing computer via a telephone line. The system was marketed in 1980 and offered as business-to-business systems that were then sold in the UK, Ireland, and Spain.
Book Stacks Unlimited, an online bookstore created by Charles M. Stack in 1992, was one of the earliest consumer shopping experiences. Stack’s store began as a dial-up bulletin board three years before Amazon was founded. In 1994, Book Stacks Unlimited moved to the Internet as Books.com and was eventually acquired by Barnes & Noble.
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When Was the First Online Transaction?
The August 12, 1994 issue of the New York Times, appropriately titled “Internet is Open” chronicled the sale between two friends of a Sting CD. The Times said, “The team of young cyberspace entrepreneurs celebrated what was apparently the first retail transaction on the Internet using a readily available version of powerful data encryption software designed to guarantee privacy.”
Early Ecommerce Timeline
1960 – 1982: Invention and the Early Days
The development of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in the 1960s paved the way for electronic commerce. EDI replaced traditional mailing and faxing of documents by allowing a digital transfer of data from one computer to another.
Trading partners could transfer orders, invoices, and other business transactions using a data format that met the ANSI ASC X12, the predominant set of standards in North America for inter-industry electronic exchange. Once an order is sent, it is then examined by a VAN (Value-Added Network) and directed to the recipient’s order processing system. EDI allowed the transfer of data seamlessly without any human intervention.
Michael Aldrich’s invention, the idea for which was sparked by a conversation with his wife about their weekly supermarket shopping expedition, involved hooking a television to their supermarket to have them deliver the groceries. Aldrich coined his invention “teleshopping” (shopping at a distance), which can be seen as the precursor for modern online shopping.
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1982 – 1990: Early E-commerce Platforms
It was apparent from the beginning that these early advancements would make B2B online shopping commercially lucrative. B2C would not be successful until the later widespread use of PCs and the World Wide Web.
In 1982, France launched Minitel, an online service that used a Videotex terminal machine accessed through telephone lines. The Minitel was free to telephone subscribers and connected millions of users to a computing network.
By 1997, over 7 million homes had Minitel terminals. The Minitel system was popular before falling out of favor after the success of the internet three years later.
Early 90’s: The World Wide Web Arrives.
In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau published a proposal to build a “Hypertext project” called “World Wide Web.” The inspiration for this project was modeled after the Dynatex SGML reader licensed by CERN.
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That same year, Berners-Lee created the first web server and wrote the first web browser. Shortly thereafter, he went on to debut the web on August 6, 1991, as a publicly-available service on the Internet. When Berners-Lee decided he would take on the task of marrying hypertext to the Internet, the process led him to develop URL, HTML, and HTTP.
In 1991, the National Science Foundation lifted its restrictions on commercial use of the NET, causing online shopping to grow exponentially. In September 1995, the NSF began charging a fee for registering domain names. The number of domain names quickly grew to two million by 1993. By this time, the NSF’s role in the Internet came to an end and a lot of the oversight shifted to the commercial sector.
From the beginning, there were many concerns over the safety of online shopping. However, the development of a security protocol, Secure Socket Layers (SSL)—and encryption certificate created by Netscape in 1994, provided a safe means to transmit data over the internet. Web browsers were able to identify whether a site had an authenticated SSL and, based on that, determine whether or not a site could be trusted.
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Now, SSL encryption protocol is a vital part of web security, and version 3.0 has become the standard for most web servers today.
The mid-’90s to Present: Marketplaces, Payments, and The Growth of E-commerce
Major Marketplaces Emerge: Amazon, eBay, and E-commerce Platforms
In the mid-90s, there were major advancements in the commercial use of the Internet. One of the first e-commerce sites was Amazon, which started in 1995 as an online bookstore but grew to become the largest online retailer in the world. Traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores were limited to about 200,000 titles. Amazon, being an online-only store without physical limitations, was able to offer exponentially more products to the shopper.
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Amazon’s range has expanded over the years and now includes music, video downloads, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. The retail giant was one of the first online retailers to add user reviews and a rating scale for their products. Product reviews are now considered one of the most effective tactics for driving sales and building customer trust.
Other e-commerce marketplace success stories include eBay, an online auction site that debuted in 1995, and Etsy, which launched in 2005 and by 2019 saw gross merchandise sales total $4.97 billion globally.
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The late 1990s also saw new e-commerce platform options for merchants. Miva’s first catalog-based e-commerce product was launched in 1997, achieving wide distribution in the late 1990s.
In 2005, Amazon launched Amazon Prime, a membership offering free two-day shipping within the contiguous United States on all eligible purchases for a flat annual fee. The membership quickly became popular, putting pressure on other merchants to offer fast and inexpensive shipping options.
Evolution of Online Payments Security
As more and more people began doing business online, a need for secure communication and transactions became apparent. In 2004, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI) was formed to ensure businesses were complying with various security requirements. The organization was created for the development, enhancement, storage, dissemination, and implementation of security standards for protecting customer account data.
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