About Get Elastic

Get Elastic is lovingly brought to you by Linda Bustos of Elastic Path Software, a flexible ecommerce framework for enterprises.

We also have a technical blog for Elastic Path users and partners.

Get New Posts Delivered to You
Next Webinar:
Ecommerce for Technology Vendors: Maximizing Your Online Channel

In the Beginning: 9 Really Old School Ecommerce Designs

Thought you’d get a kick out of some of the early versions of the most successful ecommerce sites (circa 1999-2000):

Overstock

Target

Walmart

Gap

Macy’s

Best Buy

1-800-Flowers

Amazon

Honorable mention – Radio Shack

Before Radio Shack added ecommerce functionality, the home page looked like this.

Internet, you’ve come a long way, baby.

Like This Article?

Get New Posts Delivered to You

Comments

  1. October 14th, 2009

    Sadly, there still are a lot of ecommerce websites that look like these sites used to.

    I think that Amazon one is older than 99-00. It looks like their very first design – nothing but links! How far they’ve come, though.

    Very interesting. Thanks for the trip back in time…

  2. Nancy Hill
    October 14th, 2009

    Wow, the Amazon.com one is pretty amazing. Things have obviously changed a lot (for the better) in 10 years!

  3. October 14th, 2009

    Nice trip back down memory lane.
    From a e-commerce usability perspective I’d say that Target and Wallmart did very well back then compared to the rest of the lot.

  4. October 15th, 2009

    That was an awesome ride down memory lane!

  5. October 15th, 2009

    Yes, better than some of today’s e-stores!

  6. October 15th, 2009

    I actually really like Target’s old design: Clean and simple.

  7. October 16th, 2009

    Great post, awesome to see how far theses sites have come from. I agree the Amazon design looks more like 1990 than 1999-2000. The Overstock and Target were probably the best ones by then.

  8. matt south
    October 17th, 2009

    Its crazy how the walmat layout has a different look, but exactly the same vibe to it.

  9. October 21st, 2009

    Some of them are quite plausible and in my view suitable for 2009 after adding some web 2.0 features. :)

  10. October 22nd, 2009

    Is your own bias showing through here? ,

  11. October 22nd, 2009

    It’s horrible design:) But It’s our history:)

  12. October 24th, 2009

    Yes, with such designs is little that can be sold, usability – force!

Leave a comment