A Little Layman’s History

RV dealers ask me questions about E-commerce on a daily basis. I address E-commerce in Chapter 15, but let’s start with the Internet first. The magic of the Internet is that it allows millions of individuals to share data effectively at a very inexpensive price. I remember in the late 1970s how excited I was about being one of the first to acquire a Lexitron word processor for the military at George Air Force Base, California. The yearly lease was only

$28,000! Later in the 1980s, personal computers (PCs) came out and the dream of many users was to own a machine that could process information faster and could share data with other users. PCs did get faster; diskettes, disks, magnetic tapes, and networking were a big help in giving us the ability to share information from one user to another. When the Internet became a reality, it was the ultimate answer to sharing data with people all around the world. All you needed was a personal computer containing a modem hooked up to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and you’re in business (now we even have high-speed cable

– forget the modem). Sharing information is one thing, but then came the business folks who saw that you could make lots of money by sharing information, advertising, and most importantly by selling stuff on the net. If you want to share information, advertise, or sell products on the Internet, you begin by purchasing an address location (like buying a P.O. Box at the local post office) from a licensed organization that will sell you a domain name; the cost is about $10 to $25 per name (an example would be: www.rvcrofocala.com). After you purchase your own site, you can share data, advertise, or sell to anyone you wish in the world by constructing your own website. Before elaborating on what it is you plan to do on your website, we need to first consider the RV customer.