You’ve prob heard this stat: the pandemic accelerated the shift to ecommerce by 5 years.
While the transition is happening, the shakeout has been anything but clean.
To wit: Shopify — the face of the ecommerce shift — has seen its stock fall 60% from recent highs due to technological (Facebook’s faltering ad business) and macro (reopening) changes.
What’s next?
One of the leading resources on the industry is 2PM, which — together with Deloitte — released a report highlighting 8 ecommerce trends:
- Brands to drop 3rd-party retailers: To better control inventory and customer experience, brands will focus on their own channels of distribution (“Nike will be 70% direct by 2027”).
- Digitally native brands will open more stores: Why? Physical locations “heighten the brand’s online halo.”
- Apple’s privacy changes will have a long-lasting effect. The iPhone maker has already stymied Facebook’s ad tracking and is on track to build its own ad empire.
- Rising customer acquisition costs force companies to invest in their own content to reach future customers (*cough* like HubSpot buying The Hustle *cough*).
- Payments is a battleground: The US is only 8th in mobile payments adoption. Increasing adoption is a huge biz opportunity.
- Big retailers like Amazon and Walmart will continue to buy up planes and ships to avoid future supply chain disruptions.
- The future of malls could be as logistic hubs for ecommerce, especially as product return sites.
- Web3 more than a fad: Brands will have to figure out their metaverse and blockchain strategies.
You can read the whole report here. As for us, there’s only one ironclad prediction: By 2027, we’ll still be ordering toilet paper from Amazon.