We have all heard the term "Web 2.0", which refers to the way that today's software is adapting to meet the needs of tomorrow's computer users. There is a similar term for the same trend as it affects the specific niche of eCommerce software. The phrase ?eCommerce 2.0? is starting to be used by the people who work regularly in the field of online business. It is designed to lay out some basic principles that define the way that online business will be conducted in the near future. The goal is that this definition will allow eCommerce software developers to better meet the needs of the people who are conducting business transactions online today and in the years to come.



In order to understand the idea of eCommerce 2.0, we have to take a look at the way that the web worked in its first version and the way that it works now. More specifically, we need to take a look at the history of eCommerce to see what has changed in the way that online business occurs. In the first version of eCommerce, which happened in the 1990's, we were just beginning to learn what type of transactions could take place online. We were concerned primarily with the security of using our credit cards to make transactions with businesses that did not have a physical presence (only a virtual one). For this reason, the development of eCommerce software was focused on creating websites that were high on security and privacy for the sake of both the business and the eCommerce shopper.

Although security features remain important today, we tend to take them for granted. We assume that eCommerce software will be designed in such a way that our online transactions will be secure. This is because the use of the Internet for online shopping is something that the average person does on a regular basis. It's no longer new and to be feared; it's something that we all understand and basically trust. And that means that our focus isn't on the security features anymore. Instead, we assume that they are going to be put in place and we are more interested in what other things our eCommerce software can offer to us.

Another change that has taken place between the time of the first eCommerce sites and now is that the average speed of a residential Internet connection is much faster. This means that sites don't have to be as simple as they once were because information and images don't take as much time to load. As a result, the new face of eCommerce software is focused as much on the way that it lets your site look as it is on the specific features that are offered to your customer.

These changes have all led to the development of eCommerce 2.0 which lays out six principles for eCommerce software developers to keep in mind as they make the products that we're going to be using in the near future. These principles are designed to meet the desired needs of those people who are doing online shopping. People today are so used to the Internet that they are starting to demand that it meet their specific needs. Personalization of sites is highly important to these people (which we've seen specifically with the growth of social networking sites). As a result, one of the principles of the new eCommerce software development model is that there should be a high level of personalization possible with this software. The web, and the way that we interact with the web, has changed. It only makes sense that our eCommerce software is going to change as well.