E-Commerce Transformation in the Recent Years - A Comparison of Last 6 Years
Many of us remember the name of ‘Steve Jobs’ when it comes to perfection. He was also featured in an interview with ‘Wired’ back in 1996 where he speculated the revolution and future power of global E-Commerce. He categorically stated that ‘it’s going to be huge’ but just how huge, he couldn’t state. A report from E-marketer indicates that retail E-commerce sales worldwide is expected to rise by approximately $1.5 trillion this year and to nearly $2.5 trillion by 2018.
It’s clear that a globe focus is increasingly becoming a bigger part of the commerce conversation than ever before. Moreover, the explosion in the use of mobile devices and transactions on our smartphones has launched global E-commerce on an even faster track of growth.
The key to global retail success is a concrete E-commerce platform and solutions that give a room to businesses to tap into their consumers around the globe. For smaller ventures, like rickshaw bagworks a custom messenger bag manufacturer in San Francisco. This is particularly essential while they may not have the capital or manpower to build a store in a new country, a global platform can assist them to tap the potential in those new markets.
Here are the 5 key changes in E-commerce in the past 4 to 6 years:
1. Consumer Confidence Increased:
Since the great recession of 2009, consumer confidence has been increasing leading to more holiday shopping, both in stores and online. With increased holiday shopping budgets and more options on the Internet, consumers have been steadily increasing the amount of money that they spend online.
2. E-Commerce Comfortability
In 2011, shopping online was still new for most with millions of Americans worried about the safety of their personal information. Amazon, already 15 years old, was still expanding into new popular product categories like toys, baby products, and home goods to further bolster their marketplace. Also, Amazon Prime and other Free Shipping offers were just beginning to be launched to the public.
In the past 5 years, habits of online consumers have changed dramatically highlighted by a much greater sense of trust in handing over personal information to purchase goods online. With the increased trust followed significant growth in the industry year over year.
3. Mobile commerce
As the iPhone gained mass popularity in 2010, the most innovative retailers began to test new mobile initiatives to capture their in-store shoppers on their mobile phones. Over the past 4 years, mobile shopping has grown into one of the major channels in which online shoppers browse and complete purchases because of the ease of use.
Today, every major online retailer has its own app to make the mobile shopping experience better than what a traditional web browser can offer and the app evolution has made it even better. Four years ago, the thought of shopping on your phone was still just an idea.
4. Free Shipping and FAST
When E-Commerce began to gain popularity four years ago, the speed of the process in which products could be shipped to the customer, was not even near to what they are today. In an effort to keep up with Amazon’s commitment to building fulfillment centers all over the United States, all online retailers have changed their policies to offer fast shipping at affordable rates.
5. The Number of Retailers and Products Online
Finally, the E-Commerce industry has significantly increased the number of products that are being offered online and the number of retailers that are pouring millions into catering to their shoppers through the Internet and mobile devices.
Since 2011, Walmart has been investing hundreds of millions of dollars into its E-Commerce presence in an effort to catch up to the growing empire of Amazon after realizing the potential of the growing industry. It has now become the norm for retailers to support omni-channel strategies where they can reach their customers through the many channels of retail, i.e. in-store, online, mobile, catalog, etc.