The E-Revolution
The world changed unrecognisably thanks to “The E-Revolution”
The invention of the World Wide Web has been instrumental in driving the biggest revolution since the industrial revolution. The E-Revolution has been born from the WWW, and the ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time.
This freedom of communication has born Etailing (also known as E-Commerce, Ecommerce, Online shopping). Retailing has always been the “oldest profession”, but it has lost the “R” to become a much simpler “Etail”.
My personal definition of Etail: Selling products and services to an end customer via Electronic methods.
The WWW was invented to aid communication and share data. This was quickly noted by business people and entrepreneurs who worked out that this new medium could in fact, make them money.
This drive to improve the world as well as to make money, led to the E-Revolution that has shaped the world that we all now live in – whether we like it or not, we are in the E-Revolution now.
Some changes are significantly better and some are worse, but the undeniable fact remains that our lives are very different thanks to Etail.
Back in 1923, my Great Grandfather opened a Family Provisions shop on a High Street in Kent, England. The shop was opened after the First World War, when England was still using rationing as the country was being re-built after the war.
At this time shops were being given more freedom to sell more than just the basics. The country started to import more food from abroad, and with this, a new demand for interesting products was born.
Our provision’s shop opened on March 27th 1923 and was built around two principles: Quality and excellent customer service. Any good Etailer today would be well versed to keep to these tried and tested principles.
My Great grandfather prided himself on quality and in a 1928 Magazine interview, he is quoted discussing his “House of Quality and Efficient Service”, with the response from the interviewer “and one only has to wander into the premises, to learn how justly the term is applied, and to know that it is no vain boast.”
This example is from over nine decades ago, when physical self service shops were the newest invention in shopping. A lot has changed in the world since then, If we now fast forward, past WW2, past the great depression, past the swinging sixties and into the late 1980’s, and more specifically March 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee invented an “Information management system” which later that year became what we all know as the World Wide Web.
The invention of this “communication system”, which was made to communicate with “data packets” across the world, led to a eureka moment for business people and entrepreneurs– if data can be passed around the world easily and quickly – How can we make money using this?
This is when Etail was born and the E-Revolution began. The world of Etail did not start immediately, as you will see in the history section, speeds of connection and devices used were not correct for shopping online, but over the next 15 years they perfected the WWW, and Etailers like Amazon appeared on the scene.
The arrival of Amazon, and many other etailers, in the early 1990’s started a change to the world that has changed the lives of every single person on this planet. The way we live our lives now is significantly different to a few years ago, and that change has been driven by Etail and the E-Revolution.
This book explores the journey from WWW to the world we live in now, looking at the impacts of those changes on our everyday lives. Some of these fundamental changes are good and of course, some are bad.
The book will take you through the impacts of the E-Revolution, the changes to our everyday lives, the effect on our shopping habits and a look at what the future may look like.
The E-Revolution
I want to mention the “E-Revolution” and help you understand how the new world we live in, and do business in, has been made possible due to major changes in technology and E-commerce. Where E-commerce businesses have used the internet and social media, to change our lives forever and make our world a much more connected and technology led world.
The speed of the growth with the internet, the technologies and social media, which make up the e-revolution has allowed transactions to happen. Once transactions started happening online, business changed and all business must start to utilise the world we now live in where “E-Transactions” are common place and growing.
There are different ways of the E-Transition happening, but as a business you can now sell your products and services across the world, and that can be to somebody’s desktop, mobile phone, tablet PC, laptop or any other connected device.
More importantly, for now and the future, are mobile devices where people can order your services. They could download a podcast, they could download a PDF training guide, they could watch a video of how to do something, or they could order your physical products and get them delivered to their house or their office or the nearest train station.
The e-revolution is allowing every business to transact mobile-wise and technical-wise anywhere in the world at any time.
The E-Revolution has changed the world of business
One of the massive benefits for businesses and authors and people sharing a message, is that the old world and the old boys’ networks have disappeared.
If you look at the music industry, if you look at the film industry and if you look at publishing books, the E-Revolution and the likes of Amazon and publishers have changed the way we interact and purchase.
Before say, ten years ago, if you wanted to publish a book you would have to go a publishing house, you would have to go through their process, you would have to, in essence, impress them, like you would with a record deal.
Now, you can publish a book yourself online, easily, quickly and with you in control. For example, Amazon have the capability to publish a book straight away online and if you want to produce physical books, there are a lot of processes and new services out there that allows you to publish a physical book across the world on your own.
The E-Revolution allows you to share your thoughts and share your inner most feelings and understandings with everyone across the world, and actually put that into a book, so you’ve got a physical book that you can then share and sell across the world.
But the challenge is, that whilst it is a lot easier now to create a book, people need to understand how to generate the demand for it, otherwise it’s just going to sit there – nobody knows you, nobody knows what you need to say.
It is important to realise is that you can now write a book easily, publish a book easily like we have seen with music in the music industry, especially. YouTube and other social media channels allow anybody to be a “rock star”, but as with your book, you are one of millions and you must have a marketing plan for your book.
You need to know how to market your book and how to sell your book. It is the same with any business, you need to find out where your customer is and what social media channels they use and how to sell it to them.
You could, and I am sure you will, write the most amazing book, but if you don’t sell it and market it in the correct channels, nobody will ever find you, nobody will ever read it.
There is a new world and a new way of selling things and marketing things using the online social media model.