You might not realize it, but the history of e-commerce started before the first Internet connection.  Things started happening in the 1960s, over 50 years ago, that were crucial steps along the way bringing us to the level of e commerce we have today.

First, the EDI was developed in the 60s.  EDI means Electronic Data Interchange.  This is a set of standards for electronic transactions and the exchange of business information.  Even with this development, many companies still couldn’t do business electronically with each other because there were different EDI formats. But in 1984, one EDI, the ASC X12, became the standard for transferring large amounts of transactions, and was adapted quickly by those institutions who wanted to do business electronically.

Eight years later in 1992, the first point and click web browser was developed, called Mosaic.  Then the first downloadable browser, Netscape, was developed based on Mosaic, and this gave people with Internet access the ability to participate in electronic commerce. This was really the first step in the history of e commerce that lead to the widespread e-commerce usage we see today. (more…)