Of course ecommerce has always been an important business on the web. I was just idly browsing – as one does – through the Internet Archive and it’s amazing to see how things develop. Google is now on course for revenues in 2011 of $37bn, but back in 1999, they also wanted to raise some money and so what did they do? They sold T-Shirts, baseball caps and stickers to put on the back of your car.

Funny thing is that they’re still doing the store, if you want buy any Google merchandise just hop along to the modern version of the store right here. ecommerce still has something to contribute to their revenues, but since their total “Other Revenues” accounts for just 4% of their current income, and I’ll bet that the selling of T-shirts and stress balls accounts for only a small portion of “Other”, I don’t suppose that it makes a material difference to their business. In a funny sort of way the Google story is one of the declining importance of ecommerce as a share of their revenues.

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