First Secure Online Purchase
First Secure Online Purchase is generally dated to August 11, 1994, when the startup NetMarket sold a copy of Sting's CD Ten Summoner's Tales for $12.48 plus shipping to a buyer in Philadelphia, protecting his card number with encryption.
What happened and why it matters
The NetMarket sale showed that shoppers could safely pay by card over the internet, an early step toward the checkout pages every online store depends on. The encryption came from PGP software built into a version of the Mosaic browser, so only technical users could take part, and the Internet Shopping Network and others claim similar firsts that year. Netscape's SSL protocol soon made encrypted checkout routine in mainstream browsers. The sale also ended with a CD mailed to the buyer, so from the start e-commerce depended on fulfillment: picking, packing, shipping cost and delivery time that still shape the customer experience.
People
Related events
Sources
- Dan Kohn (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
- You'll never guess what the first thing ever sold on the internet was (Fast Company) fastcompany.com
- Three attempts at making payments secure (The History of the Web) thehistoryoftheweb.com