Thirty years ago, there was no e-commerce industry to speak of, and the word ‘Amazon’ was more likely to conjure up images of rainforest canopies or giant female warriors rather than an online store. Back then, the internet was exclusively the turf of academics, government agencies, and hobbyists. But in 1989, with the introduction of the World Wide Web at CERN, a technological sea change in the telecommunication industry occurred that brought on a fundamental shift in the way we organize both our business and personal lives.
Perhaps no economic sector has experienced a revolution more profound than that of the retail industry. No longer bound by the opening times of brick-and-mortar locations or hassled by the need for transportation, potential customers are able to shop around the clock and have reacted to these convenient conditions by making billions of dollars’ worth of yearly online purchases.
And while much of the market is driven by big players such as Walmart and Amazon, (the latter accounting for 60% of e-commerce growth last year), it’d be a mistake to assume that the e-commerce world hasn’t experienced its fair share of modestly-sized start-ups. Whether it’s a means of generating passive income, a way of supplementing traditional retail sales, or a model that operates exclusively online, executing a quick online search will reveal just how many small business and private individuals rely on the internet to hawk their wares.