It’s no surprise that this grammar junky here immediately liked a new infographic from Miva Merchant, an e-commerce software and shopping cart provider. The very beginning starts with defining just how we should write the word…a question I’ve oft debated (albeit an internal debate – I wouldn’t want my coworkers to know how much I think about these kinds of things…though I am now admitting it to the world. What that says, I’m not sure.)

The graphic claims that the correct, official spelling is “e-commerce.” Fine. That settles that.

The graphic then goes on to discuss B2B vs. B2C e-commerce, and highlights a few interesting stats such as the fact that B2B e-commerce sales totaled $3,705 billion in 2012. Here’s a few more highlights:

– B2C e-commerce totaled $169 billion in 2010, only about 20% of the total e-commerce – the rest made up by B2B.
– Examples of companies transacting in B2B e-commerce included IBM, Dell and Cisco, while the B2C examples were companies like Amazon, Target and Barnes & Noble.
– It was in 1979 that Michael Aldrich “invented” online shopping.

See the full graphic below for more stats and interesting factoids about the history of e-commerce.