How eCommerce is changing the shopping process

eCommerce is an extremely big industry in 2021.

This can be substantiated by the fact that the total eCommerce sales on a global level amounted to a gigantic 3.5 trillion dollars in 2019 alone. Since 2019 a lot of things have changed, including the COVID-19 Pandemic which brought in a lot of impetus to the Online Shopping Industry.

Taking all of these into consideration, no wonder people are now always wondering about what the future of eCommerce industries would look like. From the perspective of a seller, there have been a lot of changes especially in terms of payment mechanisms. 

For instance, there are now different types of Credit Card Authorization Forms & Templates ready to use for the sake of the sellers. There is no doubt that eCommerce is proving to be an extremely lucrative business for potential entrepreneurs. This is not even the best part. In terms of growth, eCommerce has been growing fast and yet consistently from around 26 percent on a yearly basis. 

This clearly proves the fact that eCommerce is growing at a massive rate. We also need to note the fact that eCommerce is an ever-evolving industry. It will probably be changed completely in a decade worth of time. 

There are a lot of big things which are anticipated for eCommerce including drone delivery and so much more. If you are probably wondering as to what eCommerce would look like in the near future. Then you’re probably in the right place. 

In this particular article, we would be analyzing different trends and predictions to what eCommerce could become in the near future. 

• Huge role to be played by emerging markets –

Emerging markets such as India, China, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa are expected to play a significant role in the future of eCommerce. This may not be surprising at all, considering the recent growth of some of these economies, but let’s take a closer look.

It is estimated that approximately 3 billion buyers from emerging markets will be able to access the internet by 2022. That’s a lot of potential customers. It is also expected that 20 percent of all retail sales by 2022 will come from consumers currently living in those emerging markets. That’s a lot of potential sales.

The most exciting part of all of this is that many of these markets are not used by existing eCommerce businesses yet. This means that there are many opportunities for existing businesses to diversify and reach new audiences. 

It also means that more opportunities are available for new forms of eCommerce to emerge from those emerging markets and to make their services more relevant to local audiences.

• Online vs offline stores

There is no point in talking about the future without talking about the ever-growing debate of offline stores being compared to the efficiency of online stores on the internet. Typically, people in the eCommerce industry fall into one of the two camps in this debate. 

There are those people who believe that it is a matter of time before the normal offline stores disappear to accommodate the huge change with respect to online shopping. And there are those who see that there will be a huge revolution in order to revitalize and reinforce the position of offline stores over online stores.

There is no denying that the growth of online shopping far outweighs sales from regular offline stores. But that does not mean that these offline stores are actually huge assets to eCommerce platforms. For instance, if we look at huge brands such as Nike and puma. 

They have operations through both online stores as well as offline stores, however, in order to make sure that their offline stores also perform well they have set up these experience shops across the world. 

There are some experiences which are impossible to get through online shopping and hence at no point would offline shopping be completely scrapped to make way for eCommerce and Online Shopping.  

• B2B eCommerce business

Ecommerce is no longer controlled by the B2C industry. B2B eCommerce sales are projected to grow to $ 6.6 trillion this year. 

There is a growing trend wherein companies are purchasing software, products, and services for their employees. It has never been more important for companies to have the software they need to run as many processes as possible in order to get the best out of their time.

B2B is no longer just a wholesale selling system to retailers. It is a developing industry led by technology-based companies. These technological advances make our lives easier, and businesses make more profit, so it is not surprising that businesses are allocating more and more budgets on B2B purchases every year. 

If you are a B2B retailer you should make sure and focus on the fact that your eCommerce store should accept large orders, invoices, volume-based discounts, and the ability to easily reorder. With all these aspects considered you’ll be successful in B2B based business.

• Automation in eCommerce

Ecommerce automation is a growing aspect of online business. This ranges from automated marketing software and algorithms to warehousing and beyond. At this stage, every department or business unit has a degree of automation.

This practice is good as it frees employees their time and increases resources for the most important work. For example, businesses with large warehouses to do their business can invest in robots to operate more efficiently and relieve employees of the most important tasks in the filling process.

Supply chain management can benefit from flexible software that can adjust inventory alerts accordingly for when the required level of stocks go down.

• Shipping and the fulfillment aspects

Another slow trend in eCommerce with great potential is the aspect of shipping and fulfillment centers around the world. As more customers buy their goods online, there is a need for these shipping centers that can ship and deliver these items in the shortest possible time.

Around the world, these centers are becoming smarter and more automated. These complete service shipment networks ensure fast delivery of your business, access to real-time data, and allow you to provide a status of your product to your customer from departure to delivery.