One of the revolutionary changes in the contemporary world of business, which has received impulsive push in the contemporary world, is the emergence and development of e-commerce. Its rise from the consumers' future concept during the late 20th century to the modern global trend, e-commerce changed the approach to buying, partnership, and interacting with technologies. The dynamics of e-commerce in its given sense can be seen as the reflection of such important tendencies as the constant rate of technology advancements and the decrease of consumers' shopping loyalty, which are defining the modern digital economy.
The coming of age of e- business: an historical perspective
This they call the e-commerce as the practicum of managing the business transactions with the help of the electronics means and it begins with Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in the 1960s. It was employed to transmit such tender papers as the purchase order and the invoices among others; this assisted to reduce the utilization of papers in commerce. But it took till the late eighties and the early nineties for the concept of e-commerce to emerge in a form familiar now.
The internet came as a crucial boost for e-commerce because it created a suitable environment for the phenomenon. However, the restrictions on the use of the internet for business purposes were removed by the National Science Foundation in 1991 allowing the business organizations to have website. The research also identified that in 1994, the first secure online transaction was done in America by a company known as NetMarket. This incident was a show of the foresight that the internet was capable of being used to conduct business and paved the for advancement of the online shopping revolution.
The Dot-com Boom and the Appearance of Internet Trading Platforms
The last years of the nineties were characterized by the rapid development of e-commerce or the so-called "dot-com bubble. " numerous people saw the potential of Internet as a global market and started creating numerous businesses on the World Wide Web. Well established by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon initiated as an online bookstore but within a short period, it grew to be more than just an online bookstore, and certainly paved the way for online shops. In the same year of its inception in 1995, Pierre Omidyar started eBay that provided a medium for people to directly interact with each other for selling/buying products on the basis of auctions, thus extending the concept of egories based online shopping.
At the same time the enabling technologies for e-commerce were quickly developing. Electronic payment systems were forced to pay a great attention to the Website payment systems, secure socket layers (SSL), and certificates to accomplish secure transactions. Nonetheless, the impact of the Internet bubble that emerged in the early 2000 based on technology and business overviews and which ruled many dot-coms businesses, the idea of e-commerce indeed remained vibrant. Some of the firms that survived the crash like Amazon and eBay did not relent in exercising more innovations thus consolidating their hold in the market.
Mobile Opportunities for Commerce
When people were getting connected to the internet and more and more individuals had mobile devices with them the e-commerce transitioned to another phase of expansion. Smartphone devices emerged in the later part of the 2000s, this therefore paved way for the mobile commerce, or m-commerce. The consumers were no longer bound to shop products through their computer devices used on the desk; they could access and buy products anywhere, anytime on their mobile devices.
Some of the drivers that influenced the customization of m-commerce included mobile websites as well as suitable applications and mobile payment solutions. Credible firms such as Apple, Google, Samsung among others developed mobile wallets that allow storage of credit card details and purchase to be made through a single touch of the phone. This convenience explain why m-commerce was quickly adopted and especially among the youths who were quickly adopting the new mobile technology.
To meet the increasing users' demand for shopping through their mobile devices, retailers endeavored to offer the mobile friendly version of websites; some developed the dedicated applications. An ability to provide mobile applications with individualized shopping experiences also emerged as a significant driver at the same time. This means that retailers could now use data analytics to identify customers' needs and provide products that suit their needs hence increase the satisfaction of the customers and hence increase the sales.
The New Face of Social Media and its Role in Social Commerce
Today social networks are used by billions of people and have turned into an essential element of their lives, the same applies to e-commerce. SOCOM, the combination of SNS and shopping, has grown rapidly and become an influential factor in the e-commerce structure. With the introduction of in-app purchasing features, social apps like Facebook; Instagram; and Pinterest have a shopping interface, which enables users shop from their feed.
This is because consumers opt for social commerce because it could allow for almost a real-world shopping experience. Social networking sites such as face book and twitter are also quickly becoming the sources where consumers go for advice on products to purchase and trends to follow. Another factor that has also contributed to this trend is influencer marketing where the brands collaborate with the social media influencers to market their brands to a wider market. Here the interaction and faith), which influencers cultivate with their customers make social commerce a useful method of selling goods and creating customers.
Also, the growing application of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications in social commerce has added to this experience. Customers are now able to do things like fitting for apparels, seeing how a piece of furniture will look like in their house or even attend virtual shopping. Such innovations have shrinking the bond between the physical retail and the virtual retail hence opening the gap of chances for the brands to engage the consumers in the manner of which is more engaging and relevant.
Impact of the Outbreak of COVID-19
It would be recorded that the COVID-19 pandemic unfastened the variety of e-commerce as has never been seen before. Seeing that real shops shut their doors, while people were locked in their homes, web commerce was the only way to buy something. Electronic commerce sites' traffic and sales increased across all sites, especially in grocery, household, and care goods segments.
The pandemic also brought e-commerce to the frontline especially for the small business, which were forced to sell their products online due to widespread lockdown. The move to online shopping should therefore be long-term as more and more clients, who would otherwise not have transacted via the internet, have gotten used to the procedure. Therefore, firms are dedicating more resources on its e-commerce activities, be it enhancing websites and inventory or increasing delivery channels.
The Future of E-commerce
There is still much more to come for the e-commerce platforms all over the world. There is an indication that, with evolving technology, there will be rise in various trends in the future of online shopping. More and more, AI and machine learning are being applied to targeted marketing, secure supply chain management, and phone apps with intelligent help desks. There are also emerging new buying habits whereby consumers will start using smart speakers that include Amazon Echo and Google Home to search and make their purchases.
Also, the rise in consumers' concern towards sustainability does affect their buying behaviour as they prefer products which are packed more sustainably. E-commerce faced customers' increasing concerns about climate change which forced sellers to change their strategies, such as cutting emissions, providing carbon-free delivery services. This movement towards sustainable products is expected to become one of the niches for brand definition in the subsequent years.
Over time, people engaging in e-commerce need to be able to adapt to the shifting trends in the market and the technology used. These specific areas show that certain skills of adapting to change will be vital for organizations to continue to thrive in the highly saturated and much transformable e-commerce environment.
