Global Increase In E-Commerce 2022
Analyzing the acceleration of e-commerce in recent years
According to Statista, online shopping in recent years may potentially be one of the most popular online activities consumers partake in worldwide, with statistics showing global e-retail sales reaching approximately 3.5 trillion US dollars in the year 2019.
E-retail sales have only been on the rise since then, which may be analyzed by the 2020 statistics that read that e-commerce and e-retail sales accounted for approximately 18% of all retail sales globally and is suspected to attain 21.8% of retail sales by the year 2024.
Digital transformation of the retail business sector has appeared to have continued escalating at an all-time high with online marketing tools and business formation companies that offer coupons to save on your next order to integrate technology and digital tools into any specific business structure.
Understanding the Acceleration of E-Commerce
Since the global covid-19 pandemic, governments worldwide were obligated to impose strict quarantine-induced lockdowns, causing traditional brick and mortar stores to possibly close down because of the lack of foot traffic and sales revenue that would usually come with consumers.
Since then, e-commerce has been on a steady increase in the market since consumer behaviors had to adjust to online shopping, consequently boosting online retail growth and development. Despite other market shares plummeting, studies have shown that retail e-commerce shares have been steady and are only expected to increase by 24.5% by the year 2025.
Apart from the pandemic, e-commerce acceleration has been encouraging potential change in the retail space due to factors that could include changing demographics, increased retail competition in the digital era as well as rising customer and consumer expectations.
Retail business owners could have noticed a daunting challenge that comes with operationalizing e-commerce since customers who are new to the online shopping space need to be met with easy-to-use navigable and accessible online platforms in order to generate revenue for the business.
Despite there being a charged acceleration in e-commerce, there has also been a probable shift in consumer behavior trends whereby consumers have recently begun to prioritize convenience and personalization when it comes to their shopping experience.
Due to the influx of online channels to shop from, consumers have appeared to become accustomed to online purchases across the world. These behaviors in the market were only accelerated by the pandemic, though it is essential to understand that the global increase in e-commerce as well as the convenience preferring consumer market has been a change in motion long before the time of covid-19.
Analyzing the Shift From Traditional Commerce to Online Shopping Experiences
Commerce as an enterprise in itself has been around for decades, if not centuries, and maybe potentially considered to be the most integral factor of every other industry. This faculty of society could be considered to be the most influential and functional aspect of the monetary and financial sectors of the world.
Traditional commerce may be described as buying or selling physical products or services in a physical store; however, e-commerce may be described as buying and selling products or services through a screen on the internet through various digital internet channels.
This newer, more digitized commerce approach has developed to potentially simplify the retail industry, allowing all traditional operational functions to be available to consumers from the comfort of their homes.
As digitization has developed and implemented itself in most societies and industries across the world, the traditional way of commerce has slowly adapted. It is gradually becoming more available and popular online as electronic commerce or e-commerce.
This practice essentially refers to the ideology of buying and selling goods, like traditional brick and mortar stores, through the means of the internet and online digital channels.
Apart from what seems to be the apparent shift due to the pandemic, most, if not all, industries have had to adapt to survive financially during hard lockdowns and disease-related regulations.
This may have conceivably altered consumer behavior since the continuous growth of consumer retailing over the internet has appeared to have drawn a considerable amount of attention towards the shift to e-commerce solutions and implementations.