Editing Electronic business (section)

== History ==
One of the founding pillars of electronic business was the development of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) [[electronic data interchange]]. This system replaced traditional mailing and faxing of documents with a digital transfer of data from one computer to another, without any human intervention. 
[[Michael Aldrich]] is considered the developer of the predecessor to online shopping. In 1979, the entrepreneur connected a television set to a transaction processing computer with a telephone line and called it "teleshopping", meaning shopping at distance.
From the mid-nineties, major advancements were made in the commercial use of the Internet. [[Amazon.com|Amazon]], which launched in 1995, started as an online bookstore and grew to become nowadays the largest online retailer worldwide, selling food, toys, electronics, apparel and more. Other successful stories of online marketplaces include [[eBay]] or [[Etsy]]. 
In 1994, IBM, with its agency [[Ogilvy & Mather]], began to use its foundation in IT solutions and expertise to market itself as a leader of conducting business on the Internet through the term "e-business."<ref name = Pettit>{{cite book |title = Learning From Winners: How the ARF Ogilvy Award Winners Use Market Research to Create Advertising Success | first = Raymond | last = Pettit | year = 2012 | publisher = Taylor & Francis | isbn = 9781136676765 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cmvmTgt93vcC&pg=PT32 | pages = 32–33 |access-date = 2014-05-31}}</ref> Then CEO [[Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.]] was prepared to invest $1 billion to market this new brand.<ref name="Meyer">{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=A2d0RXhp4Q0C&pg=PA30 |title = The Fast Path to Corporate Growth: Leveraging Knowledge and Technologies to New Market Applimcations | page = 30 | first=Marc H. | last = Meyer | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2007 | isbn=978-0195180862}}</ref>

After conducting worldwide market research in October 1997, IBM began with an eight-page piece in ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' that would introduce the concept of "e-business" and advertise IBM's expertise in the new field.<ref name = Pettit/> IBM decided ''not'' to trademark the term "e-business" in the hopes that other companies would use the term and create an entirely new industry.<ref name=Meyer/> However, this proved to be too successful and by 2000, to differentiate itself, IBM launched a $300 million campaign about its "e-business infrastructure" capabilities.<ref name=Meyer/> Since that time, the terms, "e-business" and "e-commerce" have been loosely interchangeable and have become a part of the common vernacular.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lowry|first1=Paul Benjamin|last2=Cherrington|first2=J. Owen|last3=Watson|first3=R. J.|title=E-Business Handbook|date=2001|publisher=CRC Press|location=Boca Raton, FL}}</ref>

According to the U.S. Department Of Commerce, the estimated retail e-commerce sales in Q1 2020 were representing almost 12% of total U.S. retail sales, against 4% for Q1 2010.<ref>{{cite press release |url=https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf |title=Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales 1st Quarter 2022 |publisher=US Census Bureau |date=19 May 2022 |access-date=12 August 2022}}</ref>