Web Design & Online Shopping: 20 Year Timewarp
Last Updated on December 5th, 2017
Question: What was the first product ever securely sold over the Internet?
Answer: Sting’s compact disk, Ten Summoner’s Tales on 11th August 1994.1
Thanks to improved security measures across the net, by the mid 90s, shopping online got serious. First called e-tailing (short for electronic retailing), e-commerce has brought big brands into our homes via our desktops, tablets and mobiles for twenty years. And web design has evolved in marketing this multi-billion dollar industry.
But what did some of the first online stores look like? Well let’s take a look, shall we?
Eek! That 1998 Nike site looks like a kid’s school project. A bad one.
By 2037, we may end up saying something similar about our websites today. I just hope that my website can make me coffee by then 🙂
On a more serious note, with the web design technology we have today, even small businesses can project the power of a big brand. And very few things can market your business like a good website.
If you’re looking to get into e-tailing (read: getting your own online shop going), have a look at some of the amazing features of our new e-com demo theme: Shoppe.
SOURCES
1 Attention Shopers: Internet is Open (New York Times)
2 Pizza Hut 1996 via the Wayback Machine
3 Dell 1996 via the Wayback Machine
4 Apple 1997 via the Wayback Machine
5 Nike 1998 via the Wayback Machine
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May 12 @ 3:05 pm
It’s fascinating how (relatively) quickly things change. It’s also interesting to note that although technology is a lot more complicated than it used to be, the trend is to opt for simple and succinct pages with high-quality images (the less is more approach). Thanks for compiling a great article Craig 🙂