Well, there’s some debate about when the first transaction actually took place as well as the actual definition of ecommerce, but the article by The E-Commerce Times gives a nice look back at a potential first online sale, an IBM PC for $7,000, which took place on March 4, 1983.
13 years ago, I worked at CUC International (later Cendant, and no, I wasn’t involved with the accounting scandal). I thought CUC acquired the first real ecommerce site on the web when they acquired a company called NetMarket which was run by Roger Lee.
Anyways, ecommerce is now a $200BB industry which will grow to $300BB in three years, according to Forrester.
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