The timeline for e-commerce progression;
• 1979: Michael Aldrich invented online shopping
• 1981: Thomson Holidays, UK is first B2B online shopping
• 1982: Minitel was introduced nationwide in France by France Telecom and used for online ordering.
• 1984: Gateshead SIS/Tesco is first B2C online shopping and Mrs Snowball, 72, is the first online home shopper
• 1984: In April 1984, CompuServe launches the Electronic Mall in the USA and Canada. It is the first comprehensive electronic commerce service.
• 1985: Nissan UK sells cars and finance with credit checking to customers online from dealers' lots.
• 1987: Swreg begins to provide software and shareware authors means to sell their products online through an electronic Merchant account.
• 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, WorldWideWeb, using a NeXT computer.
• 1992: Terry Brownell launches first fully graphical, iconic navigated Bulletin board system online shopping using RoboBOARD/FX.
• 1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code name Mozilla. Pizza Hut offers online ordering on its Web page. The first online bank opens. Attempts to offer flower delivery and magazine subscriptions online. Adult materials also become commercially available, as do cars and bikes. Netscape 1.0 is introduced in late 1994 SSL encryption that made transactions secure.
• 1995: Thursday 27 April 1995, the purchase of a book by Paul Stanfield, Product Manager for CompuServe UK, from W H Smith’s shop within CompuServe’s UK Shopping Centre is the UK’s first national online shopping service secure transaction. The shopping service at launch featured WH Smith, Tesco, Virgin/Our Price, Great Universal Stores/GUS, Interflora, `Dixons Retail, Past Times, PC World (retailer) and Innovations.
• 1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free 24 hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and NetRadio start broadcasting. Dell and Cisco begin to aggressively use Internet for commercial transactions. eBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb.
• 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for printing from the Web.
• 1998: Alibaba Group is established in China.
• 1999: Business.com sold for US $7.5 million to e-Companies, which was purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The peer-to-peer filesharing software Napster launches. ATG Stores launches to sell decorative items for the home online.
• 2000: The dot-com bust.
• 2001: Alibaba.com achieved profitability in December 2001.
• 2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Niche retail companies Wayfair and NetShops are founded with the concept of selling products through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.
• 2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
• 2004: DHgate.com, China's first online b2b transaction platform, is established, forcing other b2b sites to move away from the "yellow pages" model.
• 2005: Yuval Tal founds Payoneer- a secure online payment distribution solution.
• 2005: Social Commerce was introduced by Yahoo! in November 2005
• 2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million.
• 2009: Zappos.com acquired by Amazon.com for $928 million. Retail Convergence, operator of private sale website RueLaLa.com, acquired by GSI Commerce for $180 million, plus up to $170 million in earn-out payments based on performance through 2012.
• 2010: Groupon reportedly rejects a $6 billion offer from Google. Instead, the group buying websites plans to go ahead with an IPO in mid-2011.
• 2011: Quidsi.com, parent company of Diapers.com, acquired by Amazon.com for $500 million in cash plus $45 million in debt and other obligations. GSI Commerce, a company specializing in creating, developing and running online shopping sites for brick and mortar businesses, acquired by eBay for $2.4 billion.
• 2011: Facebook deprecated FBML and adopted iframes to introduce f-commerce.
• 2012: US e-Commerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $226 billion, an increase of 12 percent over 2011.
• 2012: twitter Corporation announced about their upcoming t-commerce.
