Why eCommerce Is Primed For Further Growth, New Tech

Tech

The combination of stay-at-home orders during the pandemic and new technological breakthroughs have made eCommerce one of the most explosive industries of the last two years.

The latest report from Reuters said that “E-commerce shows no signs of slowing down.” With better delivery and fulfillment models, the increased volume of online shopping over the last year and a half has many companies capitalizing on these gains with new technologies and marketing strategies.

The Reuters survey found that online sales rose more than 120 percent during the last 12 months, with LSPs (logistics service providers) having seen e-commerce volumes explode, reporting a 200 percent increase compared to 2019-2020.

Now, both online retailers, brick and mortar stores and the newest startups are in a race to find and embrace the newest technologies for the eCommerce industry.

For example, California-based Shogun has created a platform that assists eCommerce merchants in designing their own storefronts, raising $67.5 million in funding.

Also out of California is Talkshoplive, a live-stream social shopping platform that raised $6 million from venture capitalists and angel investors, according to Practical Commerce.

Celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Garth Brooks, Paul McCartney and Dolly Parton have all said that they use the platform.

And more eCommerce companies are starting to develop mutually beneficial partnerships that allow them to leverage their new technologies.

In April, for example, NielsenIQ, a global leader in data analytics and consumer intelligence, and Loop Insights Inc. a provider of contactless solutions and artificial intelligence, announced a strategic alliance in North America that they claim will “transform” the retail sector through enhanced customer engagement that utilizes business intel.

Sheldon Inwentash, the founder of ThreeD Capital Inc., was an early investor in Loop Insights Inc., and said he believes the technology really will transform the eCommerce industry.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a company of the size and brand of Nielsen’s make a statement like that. To use the word transform, those are dangerous words,” Inwentash said. “That is a headline catcher that blew me away…Nielsen was missing something. [With Loop Insights, Nielsen has] an engine for them to obtain real time data that would have great utility to its customers, which are across the globe. This is transformative.”

The emerging B2B industry for eCommerce technology has even attracted the attention of retail behemoth Wal Mart, which just announced that it will start selling its own eCommerce technology to other retailers.

“When we started on the journey, Covid had just hit,” Anshu Bhardwaj, vice president of technology strategy and commercialization at Walmart Global Technology, told CNBC News. “We reaped the benefits of getting on this omnichannel journey early on.”

The clear message from these developments is that eCommerce hasn’t stopped growing even in countries where economies have already reopened following a rollout of vaccines.

While some people thought that consumer purchasing behaviors would return to pre-pandemic levels, that hasn’t been the case. In reality, 43 percent of consumers continue to buy more products online than they did before the pandemic, according to the Harvard Business Review.

“The fact is that most people, regardless of age, still prefer shopping for essentials in person. But for older generations, physical storefronts are especially important,” wrote the Adobe Customer Insights team in a Yahoo story. “But with 85 percent of shoppers planning to maintain or increase their online spending in the coming months, you might wonder why so many stores are set on retaining their physical space.”