According to research by VeriSign, e-commerce was born on August 11, 1994, when a CD by Sting was sold by NetMarket. Now, almost exactly 15 years later, let’s take a look back at where the industry came from and where it may be going to. The reality is that today, online stores have come a long ways from the mid-nineties, when major companies such as Amazon and eBay entered the playing field.
In the early 1990s, opening a store meant renting commercial space, buying merchandise and business equipment (such as shopping carts and cash registers), paying employees to keep the store open during business hours, and buying a service that enabled customers to pay via a credit card.
Launching an online store today means pretty much the same thing, although the virtual storefront has changed the nature of these steps and combined several into one. Online store software single handedly eliminates the need for a well-located commercial real estate (now simply a URL), 99 percent of business equipment, cashiers and a separate credit card service. Online stores are far less capital intensive than traditional retail and have the potential for wider reach.
The truth is that e-commerce didn’t develop into this miracle over night. It took years of visionary programmers and enterprising entrepreneurs to bring us the world of online shopping that we know today. Over the next few weeks, I want to share some of the lessons we can learn from this evolution and the opportunities that exist as we look forward.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I am looking forward to learning from your experience. Mine, is as a consumer. It would seem that there are many e-commerce companies that would do better if they got out of the office and onto the streets. There are some sites that I will return to time after time, to make purchases. There are others that I will never return to regardless their products or pricing. I really think that much of an e-retailer's success/failure is tied to the customer's experience and their ability or inability to see beyond the technological capabilities of their web sites.
ReplyDeleteSpare me the fancy bells and whistles. Give me what I want; quickly, easily, and with appreciation for my business, and you've got a customer for life.