The Future is Looking Bright for E-Commerce

According to Marcia Kaplan of PracticaleCommerce.com, the future is looking bright for e-commerce. Her recent article, Ecommerce Trends Point to Bright Future, references published reports that state “e-commerce has grown over the last five years at a pace that is at least twice as fast as total retail sales.” The report also states “that trend will continue over the next five years.” Her article also reports, “U.S. online sales will reach $370 billion, up from $231 billion this year, according to Forrester Research”. A few things to contribute to this growth, are:
• Multi-channel offerings
• Personalization
• Web enabled smartphones/tablets
• Emerging markets in Asia-Pacific (especially China and India)

Maria Haggerty of Dotcom Distribution agrees with the areas that are contributing to e-commerce growth and adds that in addition to multi-channel, personalization, mobile and loyalty programs that trends in online retail also include:

• Scalability,
• Shipping differentiation; and
• Delivery packaging

In addition to the trends that are taking e-commerce on the upward, there are a few items that have “cooled” in Kaplan’s opinion. Such as “celebrity curation and daily deals.” She notes, “Subscription ecommerce is still raking in venture capital investments but there is a belief that consumers may be tiring of this business model as well and some online merchants have abandoned it.”

Kaplan reports that Forrester Research “predicts only 4 million new e-commerce customers in 2013, therefore merchants should focus marketing efforts on retaining existing customers. Implementation of loyalty programs is a good retention plan. Also, making sure that the customer has a good mobile shopping experience is more important than ever. Considerations need to be made on responsive web design, a technique that renders content in a visually pleasing, usable format on any device.”

To read Kaplan’s full article click here>>