E-commerce Business Explained

E-commerce business: Brief background
The origins of E-commerce can be traced back to as early as the 1960s when firms began exchanging business records with other businesses employing Electronic Data Interchange ( EDI). In the year 1979, ASC X12 was established by the American National Standards Institute as a universal standard for businesses to exchange documents with the support of electronic mediums. The advent of Amazon and eBay in the middle of the 1990s revolutionized the E-commerce business domain after the number of independent users exchanging electronic documents with one another was already on the rise a decade earlier. Potential customers can now buy unending quantities of online brands from e-tailers; that is a typical brick and mortar stores equipped with E-commerce functionalities.
The year 1994 marked the beginning of E-commerce transactions. An individual, viz., Phil Brandenberger utilized his Mastercard to make an online purchase of Sting’s Ten Summoners’ Tales priced at $12.48. This noteworthy transaction created history and indicated to the world that E-commerce transactions have now arrived to stay since the encryption innovation was first initiated to make way for online purchases. Simply put, ever since that eventful day, E-commerce has grown exponentially. In the middle of the 1990s, the emergence of E-commerce companies like Alibaba and Amazon had transformed the overall structure of the retail industry in a global perspective. They capitalized mainly on the financial framework of global internet penetration and digitization that attributed to the sharp sales drop for several brick-and-mortar firms. E-commerce’s growth has changed the structure of the retail workforce, too. The famous U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that E-commerce jobs soared by 80% from 1997 to 2016. BLS also estimates that, by 2026, the volume of E-commerce jobs will continue to escalate and exceed 450,000 in the U.S. alone. In keeping with this scenario, it is evident that fiercely competitive intensity of E-commerce will continue to change the retail sector and affect the actions of customers. For a bunch of new crops of entrepreneurs, setting up an online business these days does seem like an appealing option. However, the foremost need is to learn the intricacies of the trade before diving deep into the IoT in tandem with E-commerce.
Would you like to read more about this topic? This book might interest you: E-commerce Business Explained.