It’s been a little over 15 years since the world was deathly afraid of Y2K crippling our global computer systems. Since that time, much has happened in between. We’ve revolutionized personal computing, the web, what it means to be ‘mobile’. We’ve built a whole new language for computing, filled with phrases like big data, predictive analytics, SaaS, and something called an omnichannel experience. And perhaps, most importantly, we’ve re-invented the way we sell.
Today, ecommerce has propelled itself into a brave new world, completely shedding it’s youthful beginnings from the likes of Pets.com and Chemdex, making way for experienced juggernauts like Amazon and Alibaba. Today, ecommerce is a multi-trillion dollar industry that supports businesses of all shapes and sizes.
As we reflect on upon this New Year, there are a lot of trends that have helped shaped the way we buy digitally, from One-Click Shopping to targeted advertising. And perhaps just as importantly, there are a lot of trends in ecommerce that we’ve discarded. So to celebrate the 2015, we at Icreon have decided to publish our annual Anti-Trends ecommerce Report (ATeR). Unlike most of the guides you’ll see this year – the ATeR will focus on big ideas that we don’t expect to see in ecommerce this coming year. So without further ado:
Anti-trend #1: Wearables-based Checkout
Mobile ecommerce sales have grown exponentially, taking huge leaps in the U.S. and China in 2014. Smartphone shopping has proven to be an excellent new gateway to the global customer. In 2015, with the unveiling of Apple Watch and Android Wear, pundits will soon be proclaiming that smartwatches and the like will be the next wave in impulse commerce. Don’t believe it for a second (no pun intended). While the wearables market is just starting to blossom – don’t expect to see many compelling reasons to start buying digitally from your watch quite yet. In 2015, odds are we’ll see a few companies adopt ‘just-in-time’ ecommerce on smartwatches – for example, companies like Starbucks and Uber, who sell a relatively known quantity of a limited number of items.
Anti-trend #2: Massive Adoption of Same-day Delivery
Make no mistake; same-day shipping is coming. But in 2015, it’s only coming to a few enterprises. For years, companies like Google and eBay have tried to figure out how to fulfill digital orders in less than 24 hours. The answer isn’t easy. From bike messenger to drones, it’s a problem that requires completely out-of-the-box solutions. The companies that do it well will likely be large enterprises like Amazon (see their latest on Manhattan deliveries) or companies like Instacart, that specialize in a particular vertical such as groceries as a 3PL. We’ll continue to see great advancements in logistics technology over the course of this year to help make it possible, but don’t expect your average mid-sized business to be touting this as a benefit any time soon.
Anti-trend #3: The Non-mobile optimized Experience
Responsive Web Design and Mobile Optimized design will completely engulf the mid- and large-sized B2C, B2B, and C2C ecommerce market. Whether it’s in the form of a website, or a well-crafted mobile app, expect almost every company you do business with to convert to mobile-friendly experiences. There are two many external pressures at this point for the switch to be ignored. From the ever-growing mobile audience that added 100 million new mobile users between 2013 and 2014, to Google’s own admission that mobile-sites will get preference in search engine rankings – most every technology manager and business owner will assuredly complete any remaining initatives to be entirely mobile-friendly.
Anti-trend #4: The demise of Credit Carts will once again be Premature
From Apple Pay to Paypal to Bitcoin, we’ve spent years trying to eradicate the credit card as the primary method of ecommerce payment. Technologies such as NFC and QR codes have proven potential alternatives in programs like Google Wallet and Starbucks’ payment platform – however, these programs have relatively niche audiences. The one platform that could potentially spur mass US adoption is Apple Pay, however, 2015 is a long-shot for it to do major damage. For one, this program requires users to have at least an iPhone 6 or above, and with most users switching phones on a two-year upgrade path, it won’t be at least until late 2015-early 2016 till there is critical mass of iDevices in the wild. Second, and perhaps more importantly, large retailers have a vested stake in ensuring that Apple doesn’t achieve large adoption too quickly. Credit cards are dead, long live credit cards.
Himanshu Sareen is CEO and Founder of Icreon Tech.