A Progressive Train from the 20TH Century through the 21ST Century.

• 14 Jun, 2021
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E-COMMERCE: A Progressive Train from the 20^TH  Century through the 21^ST Century.

If you consistently buy shoes, bags, clothes, electronics, or even some services online, you’d agree the process is as easy as riding a bicycle. It’s interesting and progressive to know that this wasn’t always the case. Especially years or a century ago. ‘What was ẹ commerce like in the 20^th century as against now?’,  'I can't deal without internet. What was it like for our forefathers not to have any digital footprints? '' Is Ecommerce advancing or are at the same point?' are likely questions bugging your genius mind.

But you are not alone. At Arfa (INCLUDE AFRA LINK), we’ve asked the same questions and sought answers. In this article, you’ll be put out of your misery with comparative answers about both centuries.

To start with, according to Dr. Roger Clarke of The National Office for the Information Economy, ‘E-commerce is a type of business transaction or interaction in which the participants prepare or conduct business or businesses electronically. It is also defined as a conduct of commerce in goods and services via electronic devices and telecommunications. With the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic, E-commerce has increasingly become the popular way and norm of business in the 21^st century.

A Progressive Commercial Tool: From Document Shares to Business tool

With the passage of time and improvement in technology, 21^st-century business ventures have utilized eCommerce for more than just exchanging documents. It is now an effective tool for reaching more customers. With numerous business ventures building their businesses online, at first, through eCommerce platforms like ours (INSERT LINK TO CREATING AN ARFA STIRE), before opening a physical store/office to boost sales up traditionally. One wouldn't be surprised to find more online stores created in 1 year than there ever were in the 20^th century.

To grasp a distinct picture of Ecommerce in both centuries, we’d have to briefly go down memory lane and examine the early years of the business model. Like online shopping, e-commerce began to share business documents between vendors and their business clients online. This was as far back as 1960-1983. Between 1982-1990, online shopping efforts got better at the arrival of the "World Wide Web" to the mid-90s where major advancements in the commercial use of the internet were noticed. In 1991 when the internet was pulled into the spotlight, Amazon was one of the e-commerce sites in the US to start online business transactions, and all other businesses followed suit.

An Innovative Technology

The significant change in e-commerce cannot be overstated, as many people have identified it to be the most effective use of modern communication technologies. Because of its wide range of influence on the present-day market, retailers consider the eCommerce model an innovative way to sell their products without worrying about the cost of operating a physical store. Money spent on unnecessary transaction costs coupled with sales, marketing, purchase, financial cost, logistics, etc., has been reduced to the bare minimum.

Ultimately, this has increased reach, access, and ease for business owners and consumers in the 21^st century compared to the 20^th. E-commerce is now an essential global technology that is beneficial to both entrepreneurs and consumers, with its ability to provide equal opportunity and access to companies and trade all over the world, causing industrial globalization.

Increased Need for Analytical Tools

Another comparative difference between eCommerce in the 20^th and 21^st century is the need for analytic tools. Although analytic tools were available in the 20^th century, most business owners were not familiar with their use, nor did they see its need. Counterintuitively, business ventures, particularly retailers in this age, use analytic tools to track consumer preferences, know how to apply and adjust their business strategy to suit the ever-evolving market. Producers are not left out in the benefits of analytic tools, as they are updated and progressive in their business journey towards attending to the needs of wholesalers and retailers more efficiently. The chart below shows the progression of e-commerce sales worldwide from 2014 to 2021.

Source: Pinterest.

Increased Consumer needs and Security awareness

The growth in e-commerce activities, as shown above, is related to the rapidly changing needs of customers. Customers are insatiable and always wanting more.

 Around 2004 it was observed that the use of online payment security was very necessary. This would not have been taken so seriously if there were not great changes and expansion in the e-commerce world. Customers needed a form of protection for their online paying methods, leading to innovation and growth from banks, website developers, and other digital commerce stakeholders. This significant commercial innovation and growth widens the progressive bridge between e-commerce today and in the 20^th century.

Finally, E-commerce in the 21^st century has evolved beyond buying and selling through the internet. Different models and applications now exist in the niche, making eCommerce a wide-ranged industry. Some of these models are business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), consumer to consumer (B2C), and consumer to business (C2B) model, amongst others. With the pace at which technology has been improving over the past years, and commercial data and statistics, we expect Ecommerce to evolve in a mind-blowing way.

We’d end this article with you answering these questions. Are you a Conservatism that prefers the 20^th century eCommerce of sharing documents? Or are you for the commercial evolution? Where do you see in eCommerce in 10 years?

We’d like to hear from you, so leave a reply!