Ever since online trading started in the early 90s, ecommerce business is going up. There used to be a stigma about shopping through the internet. People were scared of hackers stealing their money, but soon everyone understood that this is not something that happens too often.
Today, the global ecommerce market is worth around $4.2 billion. The US market is just over $500 billion. According to the ecommerce statistics, there are roughly 1.92 billion people who are shopping through the internet.
As you can see, these numbers are not something that should be ignored. It’s a matter of serious business and a market that is really big. At the moment, around 90% of all retail sales are still happening in real-life stores. This is going to change in the near future.
In this article, you can read about 5 important reasons why you can be sure that the ecommerce industry is going to take over the retail market. Follow up if you want to know how and why!
The numbers never lie
You don’t have to take the experts’ words for granted, but the numbers coming from facts and stats in ecommerce says everything you need to know. The industry is experiencing a growth rate of 265% from 2014 to 2021. The market was worth 1.3 trillion in 2014, and in 2021 it is expected this number to reach 4.9 trillion according to Statista.
When it comes to ecommerce users or people who have been buying items over the internet – the number is set around 1.9 billion. By the year 2021, based on the growth so far, it’s expected this number to surpass 2.1 billion, which is nearly 30% of the entire population in the world.
Predictions also say that in 2026, half of the entire retail sales will be made over the internet. In 2018, ecommerce sales accounted for 14.3% of the entire retail trade. If the total sales reach $40 trillion in 2026 as some predictions claim, it means that $20 trillion will be made online.
With all these numbers showing constant growth in every segment, it’s clear that ecommerce is taking over the market. According to these numbers, by the year 2040, 90% of the retail trade will be happening on the internet.
Reviews and service comments enabling quality filtration
Even though 90% of all retail sales are made in real-life stores, it doesn’t mean this is the best way to shop for anything. How many times did you buy something and it turned out it was a wrong choice? The reason for this is that employees never tell you the truth about their products because they want to sell more.
On the other hand, buying items online comes with a completely different set of options. When you choose something you like, you can see what previous clients think of the same product. It’s like going to your favorite mall and your favorite store, and with you come tens or hundreds of people who previously purchased something from the same shelves you’re looking at the moment.
They share their experience with you and all the other buyers. With it, they encourage business owners to pay more attention to their products and how good they are, but at the same time, they have to pay more attention to the overall service.
That’s why you can often read the comments saying that the item they bought was excellent, but they had problems with the delivery and the payment process. Of course, this is just an example. The overall process of rating clients and stores is helping the growth of the businesses who really deserve to grow. Those who manage to provide excellent service and products will have more customers and bigger profits.
Having all this in mind, it’s clear that people will choose this way for shopping instead of traditional. The only reason they’re not doing it right now is that the market needs time to adjust. That goes for both the stores and the customers.
The constant rise of cryptocurrencies
The first cryptocurrency, made in 2009, was the BitCoin. The first sale of it was priced at $0.0009. Today, just over 10 years later, one BitCoin is worth over $9.000. During this time, over 6.000 alternative cryptocurrencies showed on the market. All of them see more or less rise. Of course, over time, not all of them will see success, and a lot of them will surely disappear, but the cryptocurrency game will undoubtedly continue to grow.
Why is this important to ecommerce? Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies. Even though reports say that some countries have actual BitCoin ATMs, this is still just internet money. However, this is not a bad thing. Since lots of employers now offer payment in BitCoin, people are using them as a payment method without a problem.
The simplicity of paying online with cryptocurrencies is making the whole process easier. People from different countries lose money on bank interests when converting from one currency to another. This is not happening with BitCoin and the rest of the cryptocurrencies.
Smartphones make shopping a simple process
At the moment, around 2 billion people use their smartphones to make a purchase over the internet. Statistics show that approximately 80% of Americans made at least one online purchase using their smartphone.
Also, there are around 3.5 billion smartphones in the world. Most of them are connected to the internet. This makes a huge potential for the future. Some estimates say that around 40% of the entire online retail trade happens through smartphones. Just a few years back, this number was just a little over 10%. It’s clear that easy access to online stores will make this habit much closer to the ordinary shopper.
People becoming addicted to Virtual Reality and living on the net
Have you seen “Ready Player One,” the latest masterpiece by Steven Spielberg? The future is presented as entirely VR-dependent. Having in mind all the details and stats about the rise of the VR, this is not far from reality.
As people start living more and more in their virtual worlds, they’ll need to spend real money on their virtual needs. Chances are great that this money will be in the form of cryptocurrencies. However, it’s clear that this will raise the use of shopping online.
Virtual Reality might not become an addiction for most as the movie presents the reality in the future, but all statistics show that it’s going to be huge and not just in the gaming industry. Movies, tourism, education, and many other fields will use it. Let’s just hope there will be good ad blockers in the future.
Artificial Intelligence and marketing
Speaking of ads, did you know that the marketing industry is worth around $1.7 trillion? There are commercials everywhere around us. There’s almost no production today without a marketing plan.
The latest trend in the marketing industry is the use of Artificial Intelligence. The AI software installed on internet pages and social media provide huge profits for the companies using it. Even though it is still a trend that is in the phase of experimenting, some companies were not afraid to use it.
What AI does is learning how to get more and better customers. Almost 70% of Americans use Facebook actively. That’s over 220 million people. Imagine the potential companies have. The AI-driven software gathers information about the users and manages to target the ads perfectly. This helps to avoid the target missing and acquire a much higher CTR of the presented ads.
Of course, this brings a much higher chance of making a sale. Since the ad comes through the internet, and the retailers offer a one-click purchase opportunity, the ecommerce stats are continuously rising because of this.
Conclusion
The numbers are significant, but to understand why ecommerce is taking over the market, one needs to look deeper at the opportunities and possibilities that some features open up. Based on the points above, it’s clear that there’s no stopping internet trade. Ecommerce companies are going to completely take over the world until the beginning of the second half of this century.
How big and important internet trade is, speaks the top 10 list of the wealthiest people in the world. In the top 10, six of the wealthiest people have internet-related companies as their main priority. In the list are multi-billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who was the founder of Amazon, which is basically the trademark of the ecommerce business. The others are Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates, then Facebook’s main man Mark Zuckerberg, followed by the co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison. Right after him is Larry Page from Google and his partner Sergey Brin.
All this speaks about the vibrant future of ecommerce. The market is growing steadily, and it’s just a matter of time when people will stop going to actual stores in the giant malls in the area.
