What is e-commerce, you ask? Well, e-commerce is the term used to refer to any business or transaction that involves processing on the Internet. In today's world the Internet is almost essential for anything you need to do, especially shopping. There is no successful business in America that doesn't use the e-commerce system in some way. For example, have you ever shopped online, perhaps you have heard of Craigslist, eBay, Eastbay or even Amazon, all of these or have had success with their ability to buy and sell online. There are many other businesses like this, but these are just a couple of the popular ones. How did e-commerce begin, you asked? Well, e-commerce has been around for about 40 years now. Even though it has been around for so long, it has started to grow rapidly in the last 5 years and only expects to continue growing. EDI or Electronic Data Interchange started the whole movement by replacing the traditional mailing and faxing of documents with a digital transfer of data from one computer to another. A man named Michael Aldrich, an English inventor, is considered the inventor of online shopping. It is said that the idea actually came from a day spent shopping with his wife at the supermarket. In the year 1979, Aldrich connected a television to a computer equipped with a telephone line and created what he coined “Teleshopping” which means remote shopping. This was a great idea but, like most great ideas, it takes time to develop into a successful movement, and this idea would not have begun to develop in the spread of the PC and the World Wide Web also known as the Internet. The Internet, which really began to take hold in 1982, has exposed millions of users to the downsides of e-commerce. Its benefits undoubtedly outweigh the risks because for customers it saves you time from making a trip to a store when the item you want may not be there. With companies it is a great advantage because it gives growth to the company because it gives companies more options. Customers no longer have to go to a store and order, they can now simply go to their favorite place of business's website and order directly online. So this gives the company time to process orders without having to rush them. I actually order a lot of things online myself, so this is a really reliable source for me with everything sold online, you can even get car insurance or even buy a car online nowadays. So next time you are online and getting ready to order something, think that with 1 click of a button you can order anything thanks to e-commerce.