11 Mar Ecommerce Over the Last Decade
Ecommerce is a process of buying and selling online. It includes electronic transactions and online retail. Over the past decades, ecommerce has increased its popularity and has replaced traditional business and physical stores. It facilitates an individual to sell products 24 hours a day without incurring the cost of running a normal store.
Evolution
Over the past decade ecommerce has been affected by the evolution of tech hardware and the internet. One of the best allures of the internet is speedy access. The same way the internet has evolved it channels other activities to evolve such as advertising, marketing, purchasing of products and so forth – thereby making ecommerce to evolve as well. Over the past 10 years, there has been an increase of online marketplaces as a place for merchants to sell products, advertise and customers to shop. One of them is Amazon which has become very popular and is more preferred than having an online website. By using the online marketplace, the consumer can find a variety of products that match their search. They can also do comparison of different brands, prices, see other consumers’ reviews and have make a fair decision before their purchase. The use of mobile devices for online shopping.
Mobile phones have become user friendly in browsing through mobile sites or apps and this has made the process of ecommerce easy. Smaller screens are the most preferred by people and buying decisions are made without going into an actual store. In 2008, the number of people who used phones to pay for their products in the US had increased to 9 million. Furthermore, the presence of online and digital marketing has been facilitated through ecommerce. It has made companies to bind with consumers and promote the products. The young generations always have their phones with them therefore its easier to have access to online adverts. Marketing in social media platforms such as Instagram & Facebook have now replaced all the traditional ways of marketing.
The Future
The future of Ecommerce looks bright. More personalization and customer engagement are involved. In ecommerce there is no face to face interaction with the customer therefore personalized emails have been created where a customer is addressed personally according to what products they have bought. Also, in amazon, personal search data is used to recommend related products for the customer. AI Assistants and chat bots can be used to serve customers and they can perform more tasks compared to humans.