DEV Community

Cover image for E-commerce: The History and Future of online shopping
Agnes
Agnes

Posted on

E-commerce: The History and Future of online shopping

The e-commerce setup has been revolutionized so that it can amaze millions of people with its services. It can ease people's lives by giving shopping options in their comfort zone. This is what e-commerce online shopping feels like. When we try to remember the old times, there were mostly thick catalogs, our excitement for waiting for our parcel or delivery of our package, this kind of scheme or method is still loved by the majority of the people and because of this it makes online shopping the king of shopping era form a comfort zone for many people and it's still loved by the people until 2024. Now when we talk about the base starting part of e-commerce which has changed the lives of millions or billions of people, you need to buckle up to deceive yourself into the deep history and the future of e-commerce.

In this blog, you are going to get basic starting-level guidance or knowledge about e-commerce and its future in the upcoming years. The story of e-commerce has just started so don't get bored and let's get to the end without wasting any future time.

The Seeds were Sown of the E-commerce:

The story of the dynamic and powerful platform known as e-commerce started in the early starting years of the 19s, let's go back to the times of the 1960s. This story is not just going to give you knowledge but the initial base of e-commerce. The story started surprising us in the early 1960s. Let's just imagine that there is a world present with computers and dial-up connections- This was not the early year of e-commerce that came into being but the era of amazing thinkers like Michael Aldrich. Michael Aldrich was not just an ordinary person but a person with a vision that was about to change the lives of billions of people. He was the one who in 1969 made or developed an amazing system, that system is called "The Electronic Shopping'. By the word of electronic, it describes the idea of electrical automatic ways to do transactions of your money. This did not only create the concept of online shopping but the transactions part too. These were the emphasis laid upon by our one and only Michael Aldrich.

Let's move forward into the next couple of decades, this decade is talking about the internet era. In the 1900s, with the help of the internet, people got the idea to do online shopping successfully. This was also known as the "E-commerce Revolution". Here at this point. Many businesses were the ones that started getting success based on paying themselves with the e-commerce world.

The Dawn of the E-commerce World

Here comes the part of the entry of game changers, the top awesome multinational companies like Amazon and eBay. These are the top business e-commerce shopping tycoons that were founded in the year 1994. At that time, Amazon was the first one to start with an online bookstore. This bookstore was the only online bookstore at that time which drastically spread and automatically expanded itself a lot. This online store was the one that showed itself as an example of being the one involved in forever changing the retail landscape and it further caused the establishment of eBay in the year 1995. EBay was the one company that introduced the concept of doing online auctions. This was not just an ordinary auction but an auction that allowed the majority of the people to easily buy or just sell. This buying or selling was done directly to each other.

Let me give you an idea about the years of the late 1990s and the early 2000s. The 1990s and early 2000s were the ones that saw the rapid and drastic spread and growth of businesses all just because of the internet and e-commerce afterward. When we are talking about the world with topnotch growth of the companies. Then this also showed us that some top amazing companies automatically saw the pathway of solidifying their position as players in the e-commerce business world. Here comes the "Click and Mortar Model". This model gives us the idea that at this time the brick-and-mortar physical stores start getting their deserving attention and success through the e-commerce world. This model was the one that gave assurance to many businesses by giving them an online presence and attention. All these techniques opened the doors for billions of customers by giving them the enjoyment of both the best worlds. This enjoyment is about when you are browsing your options and getting to touch the products in real physical stores.

The Mobile Revolution and Social Commerce:

In the year of 2010s, it was truly witnessed that there has been a drastic or rapid change and this change has been caused by the invention of mobile phones. The rapid changes occurred due to the mobile shopping system. Mobile phones played such an important role that they provided the scheme for many online businesses to move forward with mobile shopping through their mobile phones. When these smartphones came into being, this made it a lot easier, more comfortable, and enjoyable to do online shopping also known as mobile shopping. Here smartphones are the ones that made business platforms adapt themselves to mobile shopping setup by making sure that there is a presence of mobile apps and apps that consist of service legal payment methods for people to do the transactions easily. Now the mobile phone has made mobile shopping easier by doing it from anywhere or anytime in reality.

Conclusion: The Future of Online Shopping

According to the above highlighted points, it can be concluded that the e-commerce world has a very deep history and it has revolutionized in such a way that it can make millions or billions of people's lives easier with its services. The future of e-commerce is just getting started to rise to the top and as technology is being modernized day by day, then e-commerce may have opened doors of possibilities for all of us. The best of the best product is the one that has the best price. So, say hi to shopping from your comfort zone.

Top comments (0)