Do you remember how great-great-grandfather did the family shopping? He would hitch his team of horses to the large wagon he had put in the family and trudge across the prairie for a day or so to get to the nearest ‘general store’. Once there it was a great outing for the family. The store had everything from the store-bought candy for kids to ready-made dresses for mom. If the store didn’t have that certain special item there was always the catalog option.

After the turn of the century (1900 not 2000) a couple of notable changes occurred that begin to alter family purchases. The United States began to grow and go out, at least into the oceans. And the car made its auspicious entrance. Now the family could get to the general store much faster. The mother loved that, she could do more trips in less time.

However, an embryo of change was being observed in the stores themselves. The increase in population generated more stores and a wider variety of markets. The general store began to fall apart. ‘Specialty’ shops began to spring up. Clothing stores, pharmacies, cinemas, etc. A whole group of cottage industries began to make their entrance. It is true that the big boys were still around and getting bigger all the time. Sears Roebuck and Co, JC Penny, and others were still on top, still selling through the ever-present catalogues.

As our country grew during World War II, it became more sophisticated. The small town became a city. This resulted in the concept of a ‘town square’. The big shops used to be on opposite sides of the square, with smaller specialty shops filling in the gaps. Usually these types of cities were the county seat, so you would have a courthouse and a government office building. There was something else of importance that rose to prominence during this period. Access to information began to grow with the appearance of the County Library.

As we moved further into the 1960s, the automobile presented a nightmare problem for family purchases that was totally unexpected. Traffic and parking began to drown out the concept of a town square. It is sure that everyone still wanted to buy, but usually at the same time. It was almost impossible to find a parking meter on the streets of the city center in the town square.

American ingenuity, as usual, prevailed. We made parking the priority item and called it a ‘suburban mall’. Now there were acres of free parking with the shops in the middle. The next great evolution was the air conditioning of the entire shopping center. What’s not to like? The big ones were still at opposite ends of the mall. There was now unlimited room for expansion of specialty stores. Even better, everything was accessible on foot. The only thing left was the food court. Now family shopping had moved to heaven.

We refined and sharpened this concept into an art form for decades to come. Somewhere during that time period, the government slipped into an unused or understood system that took control of the ‘internet’. And? Nothing happened for a long time. Then the next amazing invention happened. The mouse (computer) began to move. Don’t you understand that without the mouse the computer is a black box? Put them together and we have the personal computer.

Somewhere in the eternal scheme of things, the infinite minds of computer geeks and nerds began to shriek and rumble. A marriage between the Internet and the personal computer ensued. While that’s a worthwhile speech in its own right, too big for our purposes, we’d be handed over to pass it without comment. It was only a few years ago, in the mid-1990s, that this occurred. It is important to understand this in order to focus on the speed of current events, when talking about online shopping on the Internet. It was around the 1994/95 time period that a company called Netscape came along with their commercial Internet browser. An absolute revolution began. It’s not until around 1996 that Microsoft finally figured it out and came roaring down the road with its Internet explorer. The race was on.

The other side of the story was the development of functional software on the Internet. At first, the only thing we could figure out for the Internet was file transfer (FTP). Then someone realized that if we could read on the Internet, why not write on the Internet? Incredible concept! Websites started popping up everywhere.

We are beginning to see a true information highway. Any business could advertise its presence around the world with minimal effort. The Internet browser could now interact with a company’s database. Of course, it was only a heartbeat away before the website could sell products. The impact of this was absolutely profound. Shopping was changing course. Now it was called online internet shopping. Online family shopping was born.

Internet shopping online is moving so fast that it is almost impossible to keep up with day to day. However, what goes around comes around; we go back to the 1950s, electronically speaking. The big guys still have their big websites. But now small specialty stores are filling in the blanks. They can compete directly with the big companies, almost. There are online shopping malls all over the internet. Online home shopping, even online discount shopping is growing non-linearly every day

Now there is, as always, another set of complications that have arisen and need to be addressed. There are literally millions of websites on the internet that can be found or, in most cases, NOT be found. This has caused another incredibly fast cottage industry to proliferate in the form of internet marketing. Search engines, pay per click (PPC), website content, etc. now they are all very critical to a website.

When you search during an online shopping spree, for our purposes a shopping search, it’s not uncommon to come across several thousand websites. To truly shop, you need to visit one website at a time until you can find what you’re looking for. This gives rise to the word surf.

Solutions for these problems are emerging in the form of holistic online shopping mall websites that provide categories from online discount shopping to online clothing shopping to browse. The website bears the burden and responsibility of filtering and selecting the appropriate merchants based on the theme of the website.

The next emerging cutting-edge development is ‘internet online shopping specialty stores’. That’s where a very limited theme is the focus of a ‘mini website’. For example, an ‘iShop specializing in women’s plus-size clothing’ or an ‘iShop specializing in family scrapbooking’. The list of stores specializing in online shopping will soon be endless. The important factor here is that this type of website contains only merchants for that very specific specialty. That puts all the major merchants, plus many of the smaller, more competitive online shopping websites, just one click away from the customer. It greatly reduces endless browsing through every business website.

One last point, just like the mall of yore, the specialized online shopping website will have the library, that is, the information highway, news links, e-books, new content articles, and whatever required to keep a holistic family shopping environment at your fingertips. advice.

So the next step in online family shopping will be…