What’s next for e-commerce

Earlier I wrote about how e-commerce innovation has been squeezed out. Every e-commerce looks the same. We expect webshops to look a certain way. And we “shoppers” ‘punish’ (ie. not shop) where the e-commerce experience is not to the (high) standard we’ve come to expect.

So what does all of this mean for the future of e-commerce?

Rise of online experiences

Similar to how pop-up shops are not so much focused on selling a product, but displaying a brand. More and more ‘campaigns’ and temporary sites will focus on radiating a feeling and experience around the brand and product, rather than pushing a simple transaction. While these websites still might function as a webshop (albeit with a very limited product selection), the focus is more on design and branding.

More and more marketplaces

For a lot of people Amazon is the go-to place for searching any product. Vendors offer their products there, Amazon takes care of search, checkout and all logistics to fulfil the order. Similar businesses are around (each country seems to have their own, like bol.com). And I predict that more and more webshops will be made redundant because of these marketplaces. They can fulfil more efficiently, deliver a better shopping experience, and integrate that shopping experience with ‘platform perks’ (like Amazon Prime video).

This means e-commerce commoditises. On these marketplaces it is just about the product and price, nothing else to distinct the vendors between each other.

Rise of ‘laggard’ niche e-commerce

B2B is notoriously behind on e-commerce. A completely new category, there is no ‘standard’ for how we expect a B2B e-commerce to look like. That will change. As will the standards for other niches such as services, hotel bookings, non-standard logistical products (like construction pieces/homes/large pieces of wood).

These niche categories will grow, until they settle on a ‘standard’ for how to do it. Then they will consolidate again towards marketplaces.

Every shop e-commerce

There used to be a distinction between a ‘site’ and a ‘webshop’. No longer, I believe, will that be the case. The technology to have product info, checkout and payment has become commoditised. Every website can easily build it in, or already has it. Be it WordPress, a dedicated webshop, or a fully custom site built in React or some other framework. Site and webshop become interchangeable terms.