E-commerce |
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Online goods and services |
Retail services |
Marketplace services |
Mobile commerce |
Customer service |
E-procurement |
Purchase-to-pay |
Super-apps |
This page is a timeline of e-commerce . Major launches, milestones and other major events are included.
Decade | Description |
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1970s–1980s | Very basic systems of electronic commerce emerge, using new technologies electronic funds transfer (EFT) and electronic data interchange (EDI), used by a relatively small number of people. [1] [2] |
1980s–1990s | During this time period, automated teller machines and credit cards laid down the foundation for the growing world of e-commerce. The Boston Computer Exchange and Minitel become among some of the first most notable e-commerce platforms in the world. [1] [3] [4] |
1990s–2000s | The advent of the World Wide Web opened the door for many new e-commerce services to have a global scope. Services like Amazon.com and eBay were some of the most notable e-commerce websites to be released in this time period. [1] |
2000s–2010s | Hundreds of e-commerce services such as online food ordering, media streaming, online advertising, online marketplace, brick and mortar retailers, e-commerce payment systems and online storefronts emerge. |
Year | Event Type | E-commerce Type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
1969 | Major launch | N/A | CompuServe, the first major American e-commerce company, is founded. [5] |
1979 | Invention, Milestone | N/A | Electronic shopping is invented by Michael Aldrich. [6] |
1982 | Major launch, Milestone | Online marketplace | The Boston Computer Exchange, a prominent bulletin board system-based (BBS) marketplace for selling used computers, launches. [7] This is one of the first, if not the first, ever platforms for e-commerce. [8] |
1982 | Invention, Major launch | Online marketplace | Minitel, a pre-Internet Videotex online service, launches. This service could only be used in France. [3] |
1984 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Electronic Mall by CompuServe, a popular online marketplace, launches. It offered pictures of products in full color. [9] |
1986 | Milestone | N/A | The United States (US) National Science Foundation (NSF) limits use of the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) for academic purposes only. [10] |
1990 | Major launch, Milestone, Invention | N/A | The first ever web browser called WorldWideWeb is released by Tim Berners-Lee. [11] Millions who have access to the internet can now browse e-commerce platforms with greater ease. |
1992 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Book Stacks Unlimited, an online marketplace for selling books, launches. Initially, it launched on BBS, then moved to the internet in 1994, in the form of www.books.com. [12] |
1994 | Major launch | N/A | Netscape launches Netscape Navigator, a very prominent web browser. [13] |
1994 | Major launch, Milestone | N/A | Ipswitch IMail Server became the first software to be sold online and then be available for immediate download.[ citation needed ] |
1995 | Milestone | N/A | The NSF lifts its ban of internet commerce on NSFNET. [14] |
1995 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Amazon.com, an extremely prominent online marketplace, is launched by Jeff Bezos. [15] |
1995 | Major launch | Online marketplace | eBay.com, also an extremely prominent online marketplace, launches. Initially, eBay.com was called AuctionWeb. [16] |
1996 | Major launch | Online marketplace | IndiaMART, a prominent Indian online marketplace, launches. [17] |
1996 | Major launch | Online marketplace | ECPlaza, a prominent Korean online marketplace, launches. [18] |
1995 | Major launch | Online advertising | DoubleClick, a prominent and influential advertising launches. This one of the first services to serve ads on the internet. [19] |
1997 | Major launch | Media streaming service | Netflix, an extremely popular subscription video on demand service, launches. Netflix also offers a DVD delivery service. Netflix only began offering online video streaming in 2007. [20] [21] |
1998 | Acquisition | N/A | CompuServe is acquired by AOL. [5] |
1998 | Major launch | E-commerce payment system | PayPal, a very prominent online payment system, launches. [22] |
1999 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Zappos, a popular online marketplace for shoes and other apparel, launches. [23] |
1999 | Invention | N/A | Amazon patents its 1-Click service, which allows users to make faster purchases. [24] |
1999 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Tradera, an online marketplace similar to eBay.com in function, launches. [25] |
1999 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Alibaba.com, a very prominent Chinese online marketplace, launches. [26] |
2000 | Major launch | Online marketplace | StubHub, a very popular online marketplace for event tickets, launches. [27] |
2000 | Major launch | Online advertising | Google launches AdWords, an advertising service that allows users to show an advertisement in Google search results that is related to the viewer's search. [28] |
2000 | Major launch | Brick and mortar retailer | Walmart launches its website, allowing customers to shop online. [29] |
2001 | Major launch | E-commerce payment system | Skrill (formerly known as Moneybookers.com), a prominent online payment platform, launches. [30] |
2001 | Major launch | Brick and mortar retailer | Costco launches its own business-to-business online shopping system. [31] |
2001 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Newegg, a very prominent online marketplace for technology, launches. [32] |
2002 | Acquisition | N/A | eBay.com acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion in stocks. [33] [34] |
2002 | Major launch | Brick and mortar retailer | Safeway Inc. launches an online delivery service, allowing customers to shop online. [35] |
2003 | Major launch | Online advertising | Google launches AdSense, allowing users to promote their goods on the web based on the product's relevance to the viewer of the advertisement. [36] |
2003 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Valve launches Steam, the most popular Digital rights management (DRM) and gaming platform in the world. [37] |
2005 | Invention | N/A | Amazon launches its Amazon Prime service, which allows users to expedite shipping on any purchases for a flat annual fee. [38] |
2006 | Major launch | Online storefront service | Shopify, a prominent storefront service, launches. [39] ` |
2006 | Acquisition | N/A | Tradera is acquired by eBay.com for approximately $50 million. [40] |
2007 | Acquisition | N/A | StubHub is acquired by eBay.com. [41] |
2007 | Major launch | Media streaming service | Hulu, a popular subscription video on demand service, launches. Hulu is composed of various media organizations. [42] |
2007 | Major launch | Online advertising | Facebook launches its Facebook Beacon service to display more relevant information to users by collecting data on their web browsing outside of Facebook. [43] With this, Facebook can also promote products based on whatever is relevant. |
2007 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Flipkart, a popular Indian online marketplace, launches. [44] |
2007 | Major launch | Online food ordering service | Amazon Fresh, a very prominent online food ordering service, launches in Seattle. [45] It has since spread to dozens of cities across the US. [46] |
2008 | Major launch | Online storefront service | Magento. a popular online storefront service, launches. [47] |
2008 | Acquisition | N/A | Google acquires DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. [19] [48] |
2008 | Acquisition | N/A | PayPal Credit (formerly known as Bill Me Later), is acquired by eBay.com. [49] |
2008 | Major launch | Online marketplace | GOG.com, a prominent online gaming marketplace that offers DRM-free games, launches. [50] |
2009 | Major launch | Online storefront service | BigCommerce, another popular online storefront service, launches. [51] |
2009 | Acquisition | N/A | Amazon acquires Zappos.com for $1.2 billion. [52] |
2009 | Major launch, Milestone | E-commerce payment system | Bitcoin, a very prominent cryptocurrency launches, and changes how consumers can pay for online purchases or even in restaurants. [53] [54] |
2010 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Groupon, a prominent online marketplace, launches. [55] |
2010 | Major launch | Media streaming service | HBO Go, a popular subscription video on demand service that offers streaming of exclusively HBO content, launches. [56] |
2011 | Acquisition | N/A | Magento is acquired by eBay.com. [57] |
2011 | Major launch | E-commerce payment system | Google Wallet, a prominent online payment system similar to PayPal, launches. [58] |
2011 | Defunction | Online advertising | Facebook Beacon is shut down due to privacy concerns. [43] [59] |
2012 | Major launch | Online food ordering service | Instacart, a popular and growing online food ordering and delivery, launches.[ citation needed ] |
2013 | Major launch | Online advertising | Facebook begins letting users sponsor posts, which helps give their posts or products more publicity among their friends, followers, and those to whom the post is relevant. [60] [61] |
2013 | Major launch | Online food ordering service | Google Express (formerly known as Google Shopping Express), a service similar to AmazonFresh and Instacart launches in several cities across the US, starting with San Francisco. [62] |
2013 | Milestone | N/A | China becomes the largest e-commerce market in the world. [63] |
2014 | Major launch, Milestone | E-commerce payment system | Apple Pay, a prominent payment system in the form of a mobile app that mimics a credit or debit card, launches. [64] |
2014 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Jet.com, an online marketplace, launches. [65] |
2015 | Major launch | E-commerce payment system | Google launches Android Pay, a prominent payment system similar to Apple Pay. [66] |
2014 | Milestone | N/A | Singles' Day sales on Alibaba sites reach US$9.3 billion. [67] |
2015 | Milestone | N/A | Cyber Monday sales set a new record of $3 billion. [68] |
2015 | Major launch | Online marketplace | Pinterest enters the e-commerce scene by adding Buyable Pins, a feature that allows users to sell their pins to other users. [69] [70] [71] |
2015 | Milestone | N/A | Singles' Day sales on Alibaba sites reach US$14.3 billion. [72] |
2016 | Acquisition | N/A | Walmart announces it will be acquiring Jet.com for $3 billion. [73] |
2016 | Acquisition | N/A | Alibaba announces it will be acquiring a controlling stake in Lazada Group for around US$1 billion. [74] |
2016 | Milestone | N/A | Singles' Day sales on Alibaba sites reach US$17.7 billion. [75] |
2018 | Acquisition | N/A | Flipkart is acquired by Walmart. [76] |
eBay Inc. is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble. eBay is a multibillion-dollar business with operations in about 32 countries, as of 2019. The company manages the eBay website, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a wide variety of goods and services worldwide. The website is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged fees for listing items after a limited number of free listings, and an additional or separate fee when those items are sold.
Rakuten Group, Inc. is a Japanese technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around the online retail marketplace Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing fintech, digital content and communications services such as the messaging app Viber, e-book distributor Kobo, and Japan's fourth mobile carrier Rakuten Mobile. Rakuten has more than 28,000 employees worldwide, operating in 30 countries and regions, and its revenues totalling US $12.8 billion as of 2021. Rakuten was the official sponsor of the Spanish football club FC Barcelona from 2017 until 2021, and the Golden State Warriors of the NBA as of 2022. It is often referred to as the "Amazon of Japan".
eBay Enterprise, Inc. was a multinational e-commerce corporation that specialized in creating, developing and running online shopping sites for brick and mortar brands and retailers. The company also provided a variety of marketing, consumer engagement, customer care, payment processing, fulfillment, fraud detection, and technology integration services.
Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, India and China.
Walmart Labs became part of Walmart Global Tech, the technology and business services organization within Walmart. Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman founded Kosmix in 2005. In April 2011, Walmart acquired Kosmix and formed @WalmartLabs, a research division, out of it. In 2016, Walmart combined Walmart Labs and its information systems division (ISD) into one team called Walmart Technology. In August 2020, Walmart Technology launched its new identity as Walmart Global Tech as part of a new technology and shared services organization within the world's largest retailer.
Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online retailers a suite of services including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools.
Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials, groceries, and lifestyle products.
India has an Internet user base of about 636.77 million as of May 2020, about 40% of the population. Despite being the second-largest user base in world, only behind China, the penetration of e-commerce is low compared to markets like the United States, or France, but is growing, adding around 6 million new entrants every month. The industry consensus is that growth is at an inflection point.
Payoneer Global Inc. is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital.
Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the internet using images and, on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards. The site was created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, and had 463 million global monthly active users as of April 2023. It is operated by Pinterest, Inc., based in San Francisco.
JD.com, Inc., also known as Jingdong, internationally known as Joybuy and formerly called 360buy, is a Chinese e-commerce company headquartered in Beijing. It is one of the two massive B2C online retailers in China by transaction volume and revenue, a member of the Fortune Global 500 and a major competitor to Alibaba-run Tmall. When classified as a tech company, it is the largest in China by revenue, and 7th in the world in 2021.
Binny Bansal is an Indian billionaire Internet entrepreneur. In 2007 he co-founded the e-commerce platform Flipkart with Sachin Bansal and served as the chief operating officer until 11 January 2016 and was then promoted to chief executive officer (CEO). In January 2017 he was promoted to Group CEO and resigned in November 2018 due to personal misconduct allegations of Flipkart. Binny is from Chandigarh and graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi with a degree in computer science and engineering. He is currently an anchor investor in the venture firm 021 Capital which focuses on investing in the fields of biotechnology, agritech, and the internet. In 2019, Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal invested 125 crores in the endowment fund of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.
This is a timeline of Pinterest, an Internet service that serves as a "visual discovery tool", as well as the eponymous company.
Jet.com was an American e-commerce company headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey. The company was co-founded in 2014 by Marc Lore, along with Mike Hanrahan and Nate Faust. Jet.com raised $820 million over four venture rounds from GV, Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital Ventures, Accel Partners, Alibaba Group, and Fidelity. The website was formally launched in July 2015. In September 2016, it became a subsidiary of Walmart.
Lazada Group is an international e-commerce company and one of the largest e-commerce operators in Southeast Asia, with over 10,000 third-party sellers as of November 2014, and 50 million annual active buyers as of September 2019.
Alibaba Cloud, also known as Aliyun, is a cloud computing company, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group. Alibaba Cloud provides cloud computing services to online businesses and Alibaba's own e-commerce ecosystem. Its international operations are registered and headquartered in Singapore.
Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company which focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, and digital streaming. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", and is one of the world's most valuable brands.
Affirm is a publicly traded financial technology company headquartered in San Francisco, United States. Founded in 2012, the company operates as a financial lender of installment loans for consumers to use at the point of sale to finance a purchase.
Deliverr is an E-commerce fulfillment company based in the United States of America. They integrate with eCommerce marketplaces, such as Walmart, eBay, Amazon, Shopify, Wish, and BigCommerce, offering two-day shipping to merchants selling on Walmart's online marketplace, and similar service with other online marketplaces.
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