Ecommerce Business Trends: The State Of Ecommerce

12 min read

The unprecedented events of 2020/2021 have led to equally unprecedented growth in the ecommerce market in 2021. Prior to this, ecommerce has enjoyed steady, albeit less dramatic growth. However, the global pandemic has had a lasting impact on the way consumers shop, which has led to an increase in growth in 2022 with ecommerce hitting $5 trillion in revenue.

This article will give you the latest on ecommerce. Not only will it provide a short introduction to ecommerce and its importance for new and aspiring merchants out there. But it will also speak to the lasting impact of the market’s growth, and the trending influence of ecommerce, and the state of ecommerce in different sectors. To learn more, simply read on.

What is Ecommerce?

Ecommerce, which stands for electronic commerce, is any business transaction that occurs through the internet. Simply put, ecommerce is the act of buying and selling online by individuals, businesses, or larger firms. Ecommerce operates in all the segments of the marketplace, i.e., it works on the levels of: consumer to consumer, business to business, consumer to business, and business to consumer.

Importance of Ecommerce

The state of ecommerce shows that it is an important sector with growing influence. This is due to the numerous advantages it offers businesses and consumers. For businesses, below are a few reasons that you should incorporate using ecommerce into your business plan.

Broad access to customers

The number one best quality of the internet landscape today is that your customers can access it anywhere, at any given time. In the same way, your Facebook post can reach millions of people. you can sell your products to people worldwide, opening up a global population market. Unlike a brick-and-mortar store, which is limited to the people in your immediate community, ecommerce allows your products to be visible to anyone with internet access. It’s estimated that there were 2.14 billion global digital buyers in 2021 and e-commerce accounted for 18.15% of retail trades in 2021. This shows how broad and massive the ecommerce market has become.

Easy shopping experience

With the pandemic came more vulnerability, increased workloads, and the struggle of balancing work and home commitments at the same time. Therefore, it became tough for many consumers to reach their favorite stores and get the products they needed (or, just really really wanted). With ecommerce at your disposal, you can offer your products and services to your ideal target market in any part of the world without being restricted to a timezone, or to the schedules of your potential customers. With just a few clicks and taps, your customer can quickly get the products they need.

Product review and data collection

Customer reviews are essential for online store owners to project their business towards potential customers. Ecommerce platforms like Ecwid provide a template that helps business owners compile and display reviews of their products and services. About 55% of individuals check the product/store review before getting involved with a store. Therefore, with ecommerce, you have exact data for enhancing products and forecasting for better ones.

Easy to scale

As your business grows, you’ll likely want to expand your product range and reach new customers. Ecommerce makes the process of scaling your business smooth. It allows you to add more products, payment options, and delivery locations without breaking the bank.

Ecommerce gives your business diverse opportunities, including; marketing, increasing your product ranges and generating more sales. With a properly developed and optimized online store, you can achieve your goals while also offering continuous, convenient service to your customers.

The Current State of Ecommerce?

Ecommerce has been around for many years and has enjoyed steady growth. It reached a total figure of $3.2 trillion in 2017 but spiked to $4.89 trillion as of 2021. The question then is, how did this sector undergo one of the most interesting growth curves in history? Here, we will discuss the probable cause of the state of ecommerce and its influence on current business models and brand/consumer habits.

Causes

The major cause of the current state of ecommerce was, of course, the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic drove people out of stores and into their homes. This both made it necessary for consumers to look for goods and services online, and in many cases, giving them an additional amount of free time with which to do things like browsing the internet. This change in trends is evidenced in the spike in the total revenue generated via ecommerce.

This, coupled with how efficient and effective it is to get products and services via ecommerce, the ecommerce sector grew more, hitting $4.89 trillion in 2021.

Penetration of Ecommerce in the global economic market

The global economy is so massive that it is often hard to see scalable changes in consumer habits affect it all at once. That’s not true in this case, however. It’s fairly obvious from data collected about consumer trends in the pandemic era that it had a cumulative effect of the global economy, to the point of a small-scale restructuring. Keep the monumental size of that change in mind as you think through the pros and cons of getting into the ecommerce game.

The influence of ecommerce

The steady and increasing influence of ecommerce in the global marketplace has a cumulative effect. Human beings are a creature of habits. Therefore, it is not surprising that ecommerce will have a profound and lasting effect on us. Below is how ecommerce has influenced our everyday life socially and businesswise:

1. Habits

Due to the coronavirus pandemic and how easy it is to get products and services online, there has been a sharp increase in reliance on online stores. This is likely to continue even when stores become safer to visit in again, as it has opened up a wider range of shopping possibilities to the average consumer, including those well outside their immediate community.

2. The shop small business model

Shopping small become trendy in 2022, and is the shift is unlikely to reverse itself now. Consumers have seen the benefits of ecommerce in supporting small businesses, whether that’s in the store’s ability to save on labor costs, of the fact that shoppers can place orders any time of day. Since sales can be received at any time of the day, there is a likelihood of making a sale at any time, and a lower need to have anyone on hand to receive orders in person.

The State of Ecommerce in Different Sectors

On a global scale, the state of ecommerce is growing at a quick pace with no sign of slowing down. The coronavirus pandemic may have sped up this shift to an online market, but it certainly isn’t going to slow down now. However, some sectors of ecommerce are performing better than others. Below are sectors reaping most of the rewards from the recent boom in ecommerce.

Fashion and apparel

This sector comprises online stores that deal with fashion items such as clothing, shoes, and other accessories. The fashion and apparel sections of ecommerce were the most popular in 2021. According to statistics, there is a projection that it will be worth about $1003.5 billion by the year 2025.

Its success is based on effective marketing strategy and the unique advantages of the apparel industry in regards to ecommerce, including offering more inclusive sizing and broadening internet ad campaigns. It’s no wonder that the fashion and apparel industry thrives most on ecommerce platforms. Marketing strategy involves pushing the latest trends. Advantages of ecommerce involve good delivery of quality products, and it is popular in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, China, India, among others.

Beauty and personal care

Another huge contributor to the state of ecommerce in 2021 were the beauty and Personal Care industries. This includes online stores that deal with makeup, hair care items, and personal hygiene products.

The state of the beauty and personal care industry has been growing on its own, fueled in part by a cultural self-care movement and big names in entertainment from Rihanna to Selena Gomez jumping into the industry. However, its shift to a focus on direct-to-consumer ecommerce sales has helped grow the industry to a jaw-dropping value of $511 billion in 2021. There is also a projection that it will hit a market size of $716 billion by 2025.

Entertainment and household goods

One of the consequences of the coronavirus is that across the world, more and more people were staying in their houses, looking for ways to keep themselves entertained. This led to a spike in the need for books, music, games, film, and TV, or other forms of entertainment. In the United States alone, online stores generated about $23.5 million by selling books, games, films, etc.

Also, the sales of household goods such as soft furnishings, cleaning items, and home accessories spiked in 2021. This is undoubtedly true that people stayed at home due to coronavirus.

Electronics

This includes online stores that sell electronics such as computers, gaming devices, smartphones, etc. This is also one of the subsections of ecommerce that benefited from the coronavirus pandemic and continues to rise. According to statistics, electronic sales using ecommerce reached $908.73 billion in 2021.

Final Thoughts

When you compare the state of ecommerce to what it was before, you will notice massive growth. Many people might link this growth to the advantages it renders when compared to the traditional brick-and-mortar store. However, the present state of ecommerce goes more than its advantages presently. Therefore, this article introduced ecommerce and its benefits. It then went on to discuss the states of ecommerce in terms of causes, penetration, influence, and top industries gaining from ecommerce. When you look at its benefits and influence on consumers and businesses alike, ecommerce is very important in the business world. Therefore, it is the right plan to introduce into your business plan.

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Jun 18, 2021

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.