One of my favorite people in the world got his ecommerce start, in a fun, smart, borderline crazy way: he discovered a unique demand online for certain items (can’t give it away!) that could be found at your average garage sale or flea market. He’d buy them, sell them on ebay, and make a handsome profit on the exchange.
That was a long time ago, when ecommerce was a new tool for consumers and businesses alike, the concept of a sales portal still a long way off. Today, ecommerce is a necessity for every kind of organization, a way to reach out directly to your partners, customers, and expand your business (and brand!) exponentially.
So now that we’ve gone from the flea market to the mainstream, the obvious question becomes: what’s next? What will another decade bring to the world of ecommerce? Here’s a few predictions I’m stepping out on a limb to make, and welcome any additions or questions from the readers here.
- Pricing won’t be as important as creating successful outcomes: accurate, low-cost, transparent acquisitions are important, but what your customers will really look for in an ecommerce tool is the best product for them, especially in the long term. Bundles that factor in what they’ll need for their next purchase, and the ten after that. E-Commerce will showcase its ability to think ahead and make product recommendations in advance, based on both industry profiling and customer history.
- Interconnecting sales portals: I expect information to be shared at a more rapid pace than ever, and this syncs up with ecommerce advancement perfectly. If I’m buying a dozen tables from one outlet, and then switch to another organization to buy the chairs, guess what it’s going to recommend? Matching. Chairs. Purchasing history and analysis is going to play a big part in making cross-portal purchases more convenient than ever.
- This is, of course, an opt-in approach. ecommerce portals in ten years are going to know more about you than ever before, and that’s for a very specific reason: you are going to tell them! Willingly! It will be a part of the social norm not just because it makes things more convenient, but because there is a business benefit to it for the seller and purchaser alike. You will receive faster, more accurate recommendations, and they’ll be able to service you better and more efficiently. Over the next decade, we’ll see more and more incentives for volunteering your information to these sellers, in the form of discounts, giveaways, rebates and more.
You might think to yourself reading this that some of these processes are already underway, and you’d be right. Mainstream adoption of new tactics always takes time, and it relies heavily on showing off profitable, tangible results. Each day, we’re building the path, and as a result the E-Commerce world is well on its way on our way to a bigger, more exciting way of doing business.