Since the establishment of civilization till today, commerce has been a way of life. Earlier there was a barter system, where goods were exchanged for goods. Later, metal coins became a mode of exchange and then paper money came about. Transactions till then had been physical. However, the end of 20th century saw a new era emerging – the virtual transaction era. Since then commerce has been shifting to e-commerce.
I am sure most of you know this but still to makes things simpler, let me define exactly What is e-commerce? Simply put, E-commerce or electronic commerce is buying and selling of services or products or goods or information via the internet and transferring money to complete this transaction.
When it comes to electronic commerce, what comes to our mind first and foremost is amazon. After the first successful online transaction in 1994, amazon started online transactions in 1995. From then till now, Amazon has been ahead of this game out and out. What do you think is the reason? Well, of course it the fact that Amazon was able to identify the vast opportunities that e-commerce had.
This is 2020 and if you think as a business, you are 25 years late to opt for e-commerce, think again. Cause e-commerce is not just going on, it’s thriving on. There are daily updates and newer technologies are being introduced into it. E-commerce today has given
Today I’ll give you all the reasons why you need to immediately up on e-commerce, and why E-commerce is the next Big Growth Opportunity.
The Next Big Growth Opportunities in E-commerce
A large Untapped Market: While most of Europe has already been opting for electronic commerce, there is still a large untapped market in countries which are not yet completely developed such as South Africa, Brazil, India, China, etc. With the development in these countries there is a lot of potential for emergence of these markets for e-commerce.
Offline to Online and Online to Offline: Let’s just directly confront this giant debate of e-commerce swiping away the brick-and-mortar. It can be seen that many business wish to forgo the traditional dealer, retailer, cycle and directly reach the consumer. E-commerce allows for this and business are slowly switching. Due to this online transactions are on a rise. Also, it facilitates for cost saving for businesses as well as consumers. However, offline buying allows for the consumers to physically experience the product before buying. This has also led to online sellers, opening their physical stores to give the consumers the experience of buying.
Everyone’s going Mobile: Gone are the days when people shopped online from a desktop. Everyone is going mobile and that includes shopping too. E-commerce is thus focusing more on creating mobile-friendly site. Also, the other opportunity is for e-commerce sites is stepping into website application and mobile applications. This gives more convenience to the users, as also the applications can be stored in smart phones enabling easy and convenient buying at any time.
Artificial Intelligence: Use of Artificial Intelligence is the next big growth that is happening in E-commerce sector. AI allows for carrying out tasks which require human intelligence, while incurring minimum of mistakes. Whenever a customer goes on website online-shopping, there appears chatbots which chats with the consumer answering their queries, clearing their doubts and providing them solutions and all information of the product, and even comparing the products for them. These chatbots are a part of AI.
Personalization: One of the major reasons for more and more consumers to opt for online buying is because e-commerce websites today are becoming more personalized. Let me give you an example. If you tend to buy from Amazon, it’ll remember your choices and preferences, it’s AI has all data about you and thus, it gives you recommendations of products based on that, not only that, it even offers for personalized combinations and prices for the customers. People love to be treated as if they are special. use of AI in e-commerce websites enables this personalization.
Shipment: This is a right here and right now world. People love instant things, and many prefer to receive the product they have ordered online to arrive within that day itself. They are even willing to pay more for that. Thus, shipment is that aspect of e-commerce has growing opportunity in the future.
Audio Visuals: Putting up descriptions and a few photos of the products is no longer enough to satiate the consumers. Videography is on an increase and people prefer to have an audiovisual of the product.
Voice Search: Another factor which is slowly instilling into e-commerce is that of Voice Search. This feature enables the consumer to simply voice out the product they wish to buy. This is helpful when their hands are otherwise busy or they simply don’t wish to type. This emerging trend is a growing opportunity.
Without a doubt it can be said that e-commerce industry is on a rise and there are various new technologies being introduced to take this industry a step further. This has enabled the emergence of many growth Opportunities which cannot be missed.
Post Comments