donation wizard shares 10 defining moments of shopping online, from eBay to Apple Pay.
A history of online shopping
Online purchases, from 1971 to today
Amazon and eBay are ubiquitous in the world of online shopping, but did you know that the very first exchange of goods on the internet happened when computer science students tried to buy weed online in 1971? E-commerce has come a long way in over five decades. donation wizard studied the decades-long history of online shopping that allowed us to instantly order same-day delivery on Amazon Prime Day.
Technically, the first encrypted online credit card transaction took place in 1994. This news first appeared in the 1995 cyberthriller “The Net”, where Sandra Bullock’s hacker character orders pizza through a web browser at primitive graphical user interface: a brand new concept at the time. . And over the past 30 years, encryption and e-commerce frameworks have become more sophisticated to meet consumer demand and regulations.
In 2019, e-commerce surpassed in-person general merchandise sales for the first time. Decades of history and groundwork have helped everyone cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Online shopping, delivery orders of a variety of goods as well as a thriving ecosystem of curbside prepaid pickups. Grocery stores, typically slow to change and with low profit margins, have led the way in making consumers feel more secure picking up their orders.
Read on to learn about 10 defining moments of online shopping, from eBay to Apple Pay.
Cloth
1971: Illegal drugs are sold on ARPANET
Apic // Getty Images
1984: Online shopping is invented
Fotoreport Quelle AG/picture alliance via Getty Images
1994: First crypto retail transaction
After decades of “online shopping” that stopped short of a credit card transaction, the The world’s first crypto retail transaction took place in 1994. There are two competing stories as to which was the first – about a month apart – but both took place in the same year. Today it’s rare to see a URL without HTTPS indicating a secure connection, but this change has happened over time and certainly wasn’t the case in 1994. To encrypt credit card data in a secure transaction, you scramble it before sending it and know that the other party will be able to decipher it into usable data. Encryption algorithms have become more complex over time; today’s computers could easily crack that 1994 transaction.
Wahoo // Shutterstock
1995: eBay is launched
After the first secure transaction in 1994, great projects followed to allow consumers to buy online. eBay was one of the first in 1995, allowing users to buy and sell their items directly to other users (minus user fees, of course). For a company like eBay to exist and foster trust online, it needed to add a key layer in the form of responsive customer service. eBay has taken a lot of risk by implicitly covering up the issue of trust when it comes to selling antiques, collectibles, etc. And according to the annals of consumer history, Craigslist’s True Wild West appeared online soon after in 1996.
James D. Wilson/Liaison Agency // Getty Images
1995: creation of Amazon
It’s hard to remember now, but Amazon started out as an online bookstore in 1995. Within a few years, founder Jeff Bezos grew to sell music and movies as well. Amazon is one of the most instructive ways for internet businesses to “disrupt” traditional businesses. Perhaps the keystone of this strategy in the early years was free shipping on orders over a certain amount, which students found especially compelling when combined with site discounts. Amazon didn’t report any profits until 2001, when it only made $5 million in one quarter.
Paul Souders // Getty Images
1998: creation of PayPal
Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images
2010: AliExpress is launched
The launch of AliExpress marked the beginning of a new era of online shopping known as dropshipping. This business model positions an intermediary person between manufacturers and customers, allowing both to sell and to receive goods. The middle person simply takes the orders, telling the manufacturer where to send them. AliExpress functions as a huge online bazaar, where millions of products are sold from their own virtual stalls.
Funstock // Shutterstock
Pizza Day 2010: Bitcoin is first used to buy physical goods
Bitcoin is still elusive for many people, even after more than a decade in the public eye. It is a cryptocurrency, which means that it is virtual, decentralized and processed by a computer working through complex mathematics taken from cryptography. In 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz was looking to exchange 10,000 Bitcoin, valued at around $41 at the time, for two pizzas. This meant finding someone who would accept the Bitcoin transfer and implicitly turn it into cash, which was paid to a local Papa John’s. Bitcoin gained popularity in 2017with many pizzerias now directly accepting crypto payments.
Christopher Morris/Corbis via Getty Images
2014: Launch of Apple Pay
Apple has long led the way in revolutionizing consumer technology, from its groundbreaking iMac G3 in 1998 and iPod in 2001 to the now ubiquitous iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple Pay marked another of the company’s initiatives to transform the way consumers pay for their goods. The technology uses a principle called near-field communication, essentially creating a small force field around an iPhone or Apple Watch to trigger a waiting scanner, such as a point-of-sale terminal. Apple introduced Apple Pay as a contactless way to leave your wallet at home. Other companies such as Google and Samsung followed with their own apps. The idea of mobile payment has become more appealing during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving one less thing to sanitize on a regular basis.
DenPhotos // Shutterstock
2015: First Amazon Prime Day
Amazon Prime has been a huge boon for the online retailer, with customers paying a membership fee each year in exchange for free, fast shipping and access to Prime Video and other services. In 2015, the e-commerce giant launched Prime Day, a budding shopping party where Amazon offers limited-time deals as well as big sales. Perhaps not by chance, Amazon acquired Woot, pioneer of timed chords, in 2010.
Prime Day’s “sell until it’s gone” philosophy is much like the long-standing tradition of “Woot-Offs,” special events where Woot worked to clear his shelves of accumulated merchandise. While Prime Day traditionally takes place in July each year, Amazon has started to think about the idea of multiple “themed” Prime Days throughout the year. In 2022, for example, there was a July Prime Day and a Prime Day holiday preview will take place in the fall.
This story originally appeared on Giving Assistant and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Comments are closed.