Invention of WWW and E-commerce

Hi! Today's blog is dedicated invention of WWW and E-commerce.

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. 

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)—an 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. 

Now, SSL encryption protocol is a vital part of web security, and version 3.0 has become the standard for most web servers today. "(Miva, 2020)

"Mid ‘90s to Present: Marketplaces, Payments and The Growth of Ecommerce  

Major Marketplaces Emerge: Amazon, eBay, and Ecommerce Platforms 

In the mid-90s, there were major advancements in the commercial use of the Internet. One of the first ecommerce 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. 

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 ecommerce 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. 

The late 1990s also saw new ecommerce platform options for merchants. Miva’s first catalog-based ecommerce 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."(Miva, 2020)

Reference:

Miva. (2020) The History Of Ecommerce: How Did It All Begin?. [online] Available at:<https://blog.miva.com/the-history-of-ecommerce-how-did-it-all-begin#:~:text=In%201990%20Tim%20Berners%2DLee,wrote%20the%20first%20web%20browser.> [Accessed 21 January 2023]