Process of How Trade Changed From Barter To Mobile Commerce.
Trade originally took the form of barter, when individuals traded one good for another. Food was exchanged for animal hides or services by prehistoric humans. Coins and other currencies started to appear over time.
Pearls and shells were utilized as money in several prehistoric societies. Gold bars were utilized in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but each transaction required weighing the bars.
When metal coins were developed, perhaps between 700 and 500 BCE, trading became simpler and the concept of value was established. This allowed coins to be counted without needing to be weighed, greatly simplifying transactions.
Due to the common value of gold and silver coins, trade across nations was made possible when they were first produced, circa 500 BCE. This made it possible for nations that had excess inventory of some items to sell those goods to other countries in need.
The principles of trade have not altered significantly since the prehistoric era, yet our methods of conducting business have undergone a complete transformation in the past century. All businesses used to be tiny ones: merchants would sell their goods to neighbors or other companies (like a general store in a small town in the early 1900s).
However, the emergence of large corporations brought about the development of department stores and chain stores.
Superstores like the much-feared Walmart and Barnes & Noble first appeared in the 1980s. When smaller retailers learned that one of these superstores was coming to town, they panicked. Many smaller businesses were pushed to close by superstores and hypermarkets due to their low prices and large-scale economies.
However, as e-commerce grew and helped level the playing field, the tide started to turn again in favor of small shops during the 1990s. When the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) protocol was created in 1960, it became feasible to transport digital data between computers, laying the foundation for modern e-commerce.
However, until Netscape created Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption in 1994, security concerns hindered this tool’s widespread deployment. Around the same time, VeriSign created the first digital certificates for online business verification, and the first third-party services for online credit card payment processing appeared.
The American e-commerce landscape was altered by Amazon and eBay in the middle of the 1990s. Amazon’s popularity among customers can be attributed to its ability to identify books using various search parameters, provide personalized suggestions, and allow users to submit reviews of their purchases. Meanwhile, eBay made it simple and safe for people to launch their internet businesses.
After the dot-com bubble crashed in 2000, interest in e-commerce temporarily declined. Too much had been bet on people’s desire to purchase everything online through websites such as Pets.com. However, the previous state of affairs was never restored.
To ensure that internet companies will adhere to the security standards for financial transactions, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was created in 2004. Even for those who had reservations about online shopping in the past, the added security made it more alluring.
BI Intelligence analysis shows that 40% of men in the 18–34 age range said they would prefer to do all of their shopping online. Although millennials are the most frequent internet buyers, older people, women, and baby boomers also frequently shop online.
The generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, known as millennials, spend the most money online—an average of US$2,000 annually—as well as a proportion of their income—9%. The future of trade will be shaped by this generation’s familiarity with e-commerce as they get older.
According to comScore research, traditional chains with physical locations lost ground to online retailers in the USA in terms of sales for the first time ever. These merchants are known as e-retailers.
Since e-retailers’ online sales are rising far faster than traditional businesses, this disparity is widening. In the coming years, it is anticipated that online sales will reach $400 billion in the US: Sales are expected to reach US$414 billion according to Forrester Research, and US$491.5 billion according to eMarketer.
But a new countertrend is beginning to take shape: online retailers are opening physical locations to fulfill customers’ needs to touch, feel, and examine items before making a purchase.
Among the e-retailers that have been successful in incorporating physical commerce into their online business strategy are Bonobos, Warby Parker, and NastyGal. In fact, according to a 2013 Accenture survey, 65% of internet shoppers intended to do their product research online before making their in-store purchase.
The two main reasons customers visit physical stores are to save shipping expenses (47%) and to be able to touch things (46%). Naturally, the opposite is also true. Many shoppers go to actual locations to see and handle things, but they later shop online for better deals.
The largest shift in today’s world is the rise of mobile e-commerce, or m-commerce. 2014 marked a turning point, according to comScore, as mobile devices now account for the majority of interactions on retail e-commerce websites. This indicates that customers are looking at things and comparing pricing, even though it doesn’t necessarily mean they are making purchases on their phones just yet.
Because of these changes, businesses must maximize every channel through which their customers contact them.
Process of How Trade Changed From Barter To Mobile Commerce.
