The History and Evolution of E-commerce

Let me share with you the origin of e-commerce.

E-commerce was first introduced in early 1970s. It was define as the process of implementing the commercial electronically with the help of technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). (“Histroy of Ecommerce”, 2004) Both of these applications had enabled businesses to transfer their funds or data electronically from one organization to another organization.

E-commerce application was broadly used when the internet became available to everyone in early 1990s. The advancement of internet was due to the development of new networks, security protocols and digital subscriber loop (DSL) which provides higher speed and persistent connection. Since then, there were large amount of businesses and people started to engage themselves at the web sites. At that moment, people began to change their perception about e-commerce. They refine the term e-commerce as the process of buying, selling, or exchanging products, services and information through computer network. (Turban, 2008).

People started to set up their web sites to carry out their business online. In 1999, the emphasis on the e-commerce type had evolved from business to consumer (B2C) to business to business, business-to-employees, collaborative commerce (c-commerce), e-government, e-learning, and mobile commerce (m-commerce). Due to all this changes, people nowadays are able to make payment, buying and selling products and services without the need to step out from their houses. They can now spend their all time shopping at home clicking on what they want.

The first e-commerce company that was being set up in Malaysia was Pizza Hut Sdn. Bhd.. Due to the benefit and effectiveness of e-commerce, more and more company had engaged in e-commerce businesses. Currently, there are a few companies which achieve huge success in the global market. For instance, Air Asia and MPH were among Malaysian company which achieved excellent result in the market. (Lee, 2007)

In year 2004, O’Reilly Media came out with the term Web 2.0 which refers to the second-generation of Internet-based services. It brings people together and share information online in a perceived new ways (Turban, 2008). The new methods included communication tools, wikis, social networking sites and others. Web2.0 did not just help users on retrieving information, but also allows application to be run through a browser. Due to Web 2.O, web site owners were able to modify their web page by adding more value to attract people to their sites. This had eventually taken e-commerce activities to be more recognized by world internet users.

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Related Link

• History of Ecommerce. (2004). Retrieved June 17, 2009, from http://www.ecommerce-land.com/history_ecommerce.html
  
• Lee, Christy S. W. (2007, September 20). Malysian dotcoms: Where are they now?. The Star Online. Retrieved June 17, 2009, from http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/9/20/itfeature/18927703&sec=itfeature
  
• Turban, E., King, D., Mckay, J., Marshall, P., Lee, J., & Viehland, D. (2008). Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective 2008 (International Edittion). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Education International.