25
Jan
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Online shopping is something that most of us take for granted these days. We enjoy the convenience and other benefits of shopping online. However it wasn’t that long ago that we couldn’t shop online from home at all. Online shopping didn’t even develop until the mid-1990’s. When we remember that, we realize that we’re still in the early stages of online shopping. We’re still learning what works, what doesn’t and how we can improve this great shopping option so that it’s even better in the future than it is today. Let’s take a look at the history of online shopping so we can see how far we’ve come to date.
Before Online Shopping: What It Required to Start Shopping Online
There is some history of online shopping that dates back to the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. However most of this was theoretical. The Internet was neither widespread in use nor fast enough to accommodate e-commerce at this time. As a result, although there were steps made to make online shopping happen back then, not much really took place that relates to the online shopping tools we use today.
There were a few different things that had to happen before online shopping could become an option for us. Once those things had occurred, we were able to enter the early stages of shopping online. The things that had to happen included:
- Regular access to the world wide web. We needed for there to be some way to access online stores before those stores could be up and running. The Internet had to develop to a point where in-home computer access was increasingly common. This didn’t happen until the early 1990’s.
- Possibility of online banking. There needed to be some method of payment that would work online before online shopping could happen. It wasn’t until 1994 that this type of option became truly available for potential online retailers to take advantage of.
- Early adopters to test it out. Companies needed to be willing to take a risk on this new form of reaching their customers.
- Large increase in the number of online stores. This includes both online counterparts to brick-and-mortar stores as well as new web-only stores.
- Advances in mobile shopping technology. We’re able to shop from our phones, receive mobile coupons and use geolocation services to find stores near us. All of this makes mobile web shopping much more common than ever before.
- Increase in the number of “deal of the day” sites. We’re seeing a strong push from online retailers who are offering a deal of the day to entice customers to do more online shopping.
- Online shopping has become increasingly affordable. Reducing the cost of running a store means that retailers can pass savings on to others. Combine that with the growth in popularity of online discount codes and you’ve got a great deal when shopping online.
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1
Nice little post…consider me among the converted to online shopping. It’s just too easy, convenient and fun to ignore. And if I may, I recommend users check out Sortprice.com as their de facto price comparison site–I’ve found they have the best selection of varying merchants, meaning better selections and higher probability of saving some money.