4. How the Net became a mall
While the Internet has been around for decades, it hasnt always been used for e-Commerce.
At first, the Internet was only used by governments and academics. But as it continued to grow and improve, more and more people gained access to it - even people with little computer knowledge. Today there are hundreds of millions of people using the Internet anywhere in the world. Whilst it didnt start like this, smart business people realized years ago that, wherever lots of people meet, you can sell them something. e-Commerce was born when the first shop opened on the Internet in 1994. Some business people went absolutely crazy and spent hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to try to sell their goods on the Internet. Of course especially at the beginning there werent enough customers on the Internet to support such huge investments. So they went broke. Or are going broke even today. But things have changed. Today tens of millions of people buy online. And a few hundred dollars allow you to start selling them goods. Quite obviously the situation has changed dramatically since the early days - which after all werent all that long ago. The low costs of getting started and the positive results many businesses are experiencing, have led to an explosion of online shops. ShopFactory solutions have been used to create tens of thousands of shops in 55 countries.
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