Historical Developments in Online Business Methods

Online product directories originated only a few years ago and they can be categorized among the youngest online marketing mediums. This further means that their potential has not been fully explored till date. So, you can expect them to have a very bright future in the field of online marketing.

But, do you ever wonder what led to the origination of the product directories available on the web? There are some important developments in the history that gave birth to these directories. The following discussion provides information about the history of internet product directories.

Discovery of Internet
Needless to say, the discovery of cyber space is the first step towards the creation of online product directories. Internet in its proper form came into being in around 1994 and people thought of doing new experiments in the cyber world. The presence of internet product directories today is the result of few of such experiments.

Development of eCommerce
The Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was an already existing standard at the time of internet development. The discovery of Mosaic browser and DSL further prepared the platform for eCommerce. In 1998, AOL recorded the sale of 1.2 billion from online sale during the Christmas holiday season. In 2000, the merger worth $350 million between AOL and Time Warner strengthened the significance of online commerce.

B2B Business Model
Till 2001, all the efforts were made towards the online business to customer (b2c) model. By the end of 2001, a new type of model called business to business (b2b) not only became popular but recorded the transactions worth $700 billion. The year can be called the beginning of the era of online product directories. The business buyers and sellers, including manufacturers, suppliers, exporters, distributors, wholesalers and retailers, got a global marketplace in the form of b2b space.

Emergence of SMEs
The small and medium sized enterprises sector grew due to the concept of eCommerce and it further contributed towards the popularity of online product directories. These enterprises got the inexpensive medium of promoting their businesses at a global level.

Business to business is indeed the most powerful model these days and online product directories are the mediums to implement this model successfully on the web.