7 Themes for ecommerce in 2013

I thought about writing a few predictions for 2013 but it seems Forbes and techcircle have beaten me to it. 2013 is going to be a fascinating year for ecommerce. Why? Well, global ecommerce is now a reality and innovation is happening all across the globe. The amount of customers that are able to buy merchandise online is growing by the day.

Personalitization for customers
One of the most interesting parts of ecommerce that I think is due to for a bit of innovation. Amazon’s recommendation engine is powerful but is in need of a bit of a refresh. Ultimately if you have a customer on your website who is ready to buy items, a bit of additional marketing never is a bad thing. Startups like RichRelevance will continue to provide a service to merhants that provides personal advertising when browsing while shopping online.

I think there is quite a bit more to do here as mobile and tablets also come into the conversation. At the moment nothing frustrates me more than having items in my shopping cart while browsing on either my mobile or tablet but then when trying to finish the transaction on my notebook, the items are no longer in my shopping cart. Surely there must be a solution to this situation (I am not even going to be mentioning the logged in methodology seen a solution.) Either provide an easier flow to buy on a mobile device or tablet or provide a way to complete the process on my notebook.

Loyalty programmes
When I was in the US in October, I saw a lot of loyalty services for banks and airlines.  A few of the big ecommerce players have a branded credit card that has benefits for customers that use the credit card. In the developing ecommerce world, this concept is almost on seen at all, why? I don’t believe eretailers are aware of the potential this has. Loyalty is a big business but an execution like what is seen with Amazon Prime is a bit much.

Why is rewarding sales from recurring customers, not monetised better? If I spend several thousand Rands, dollars or Euros at a specific online shop, why am I not marketed in a non standard way? Surely, this information is readily available to online shops marketing departments.. I see a special class created of customers being created by an online merchant and then the shoppers that qualify then get additional benefits from being a recurring shopper. Being able to create a supply and demand for this has huge word of mouth marketing potential for the respective online shop. Is this potentially a use for Big data that is stored on these ecommerce websites?

Investment into resources
We take it for granted that our executives know everything that is relevant to their ecommerce landscape. I am a firm believer in staff education as skills transference is of vital importance for all ecommerce operations. Investment is being done into developing markets by investment banks, ecommerce specific investors (Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, MIH etc) but how much of that investment is to further educate staff? However, does this well, will have staff joining them at a rate of knots.

Deeper integration between physical and online commerce
OK, so this theme is not really anything new. In developed ecommerce markets (UK, Germany and the US) this is already happening. The lines between online and offline commerce will continue to become fuzzy. Mobile commerce enables users to browse a second or a third store will being in a specific retailer. I am expecting that this theme will be seen in the developing ecommerce markets that is maturing (China, Brazil and Turkey). South African retailers, the clock is ticking have you considered a channel that can serve both online and offline customers?

Logistics
In the developing ecommerce markets (India, Turkey and Russia), logistics is a huge challenge for ecommerce merchants. It is going to take the merchants to invest in logisitics as seen with Ozon in Russia; Flipkart in India. It is an asset that will determine market leadership in growing markets. 2013 will continue to display ecommerce investment into logistics in developing markets. I have a feeling that Aramex logistics is going to be a big player in Africa after their acquisition of Berco.

I believe that in the US, Amazon will continue to invest into distribution facilities and that either UPS or Fedex become an acquisition target for one of the big online commerce businesses. The final stretch of the ecommerce transaction cycle is not being controlled by the respective business and acquiring a large logistics business and add a huge defensible asset to their value chain.

Pricing analytics / intelligence
In developed ecommerce markets pricing of merchandise will become a bigger item for investment. Merchandise pricing is as volatile as I can remember and with that comes an opportunity for startups to create analytics and data based forecasts on what item pricing was and what it can potentially be. I now understand the power of Decide.com, as pricing of items has change unannounced to customers on Amazon etc. As a retailer, I think it would be very beneficial to have pricing intelligence of my direct competitors over a period of time. This a part of ecommerce that I think we will see a lot about in 2013.

Mobile
In 2013, Mobile will continue to be the fastest growing part of ecommerce. We all know about this, but bigger screen devices which seem to becoming more common place will become something that needs to be thought about. Responsive design will become a part of operational strategy for ecommerce businesses. I also think that 2013 will be the year in which conversions on mobile device shopping will increase. Bigger screen devices and mobile optimised websites will ensure that an actual transaction can be completed.

When last have you opened up your mobile product and used it for a day? That will provide the insights on what needs to be done in terms of planning for 2013.

Update: 

After posting the article Rian van der Merwe, tweeted me 2 items that can be added to the list:

Local / Niche Merchants
I have been seeing a fair amount of talk on “unique SKU’s” that Amazon does not have and won’t have in the future. The truth is that Amazon is the gorilla in the room and they scare most if not all commerce businesses. Local or Niche operators service a need that is too small for Amazon but  large enough to create potential for smaller commerce businesses. This could in the long run turn into a Wayfair situation in which a large number of these smaller niche operators consolidate in one large business.

Editorial commerce
Let us all agree on the fact that traditional editorial is in decline. Editorial commerce provides content businesses with a potential to make additional revenue from products that they already have. (Digital subscriptions etc). On another level editorial commerce provides commerce businesses with a way in which merchandise can be repurposed and shown to potential buyers. Editorial commerce can also be seen as a curated version of commerce in which merchants provide a high end experience around a specific theme: design (Fab.com), Catalogs (Net-a-Porter) etc. Curation ensures that the user acquisition is done much faster as the identification with the merchandise can happen much more quickly.

2013 is going to be a very interesting year for ecommerce.. Onwards.