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The History of E-Commerce

In the 1970's, practices like Electronic Funds Transfer and Electronic Data Exchange became utilized within businesses with compatible technology. Basically, this means the beginning of credit cards, ATMs, and banking and buying and selling over the phone, because these practices made these things widespread.

Then, along came the Internet. When the Internet first came into common use, commercial enterprise was against the rules. It only took a couple of years to change that rule, and the first online shops opened in 1994. Fast forward a little more than five years, and electronic payment options and security protocols came into practice. This made the Internet a worldwide shopping option, and e-commerce was born.

Today, e-commerce exists in the form of virtual stores, virtual malls, buying and selling business-to-business, Electronic Data Exchange (which is exactly what it sounds like), and online catalogs. Obviously, this is very successful, and the Internet is a multi-billion dollar revenue source.

The good news about that is that despite economic woes and bad economies, online business continues to grow. Anyone can buy a domain name, host a website, build that website, and become an online retailer or seller of services.

Whether you offer a service and set yourself up to be paid via PayPal, or if you offer goods for sale and have a need for a virtual shopping cart, software exists to make your e-commerce site easy for you to use and (most importantly) easy for your customer to use.

There are a lot of things to consider, like having the proper accounts with which you can process credit card payments, how you will deliver or ship your goods, and how you will deliver your services. The first step is to set up your website, but there are many more steps to becoming a successful online retailer, or "e-tailer."

You also will need to market your business, optimize your webpage so that you get traffic to your website, and you'll have to maintain your business records so that you keep yourself out of legal trouble. Again, it is lucky that you have so many tools at your fingertips that make these processes virtually (pun intended) painless.

A word of caution - with so many e-businesses flooding the market, you will have to be aware of the price competition that exists, as well as copycat sites and unethical internet users. As in any business, it is important to have a strong business model and plenty of good ethics to conduct your business fairly and responsibly. Luckily, since the users of the Internet and the buyers of your goods and services are real people (at least most of the time), a good business model and ethical practices can go a long way to establishing your credibility, and ensuring return business.

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