By Shmuli Goldberg, Feedvisor
Right now, online sellers across the country are working as hard as they can to get in orders, wrap up products, and ship items in time to get them to customers by December 25th. While this season is manic for merchants looking to capitalize on their Christmas sales, it’s worth taking a few minutes to plan for the year ahead.
2015 set to be very different from the previous year, and we already have some indication of what’s to come. With that in mind, here are our five top e-Commerce predictions for 2015:
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- Marketplaces will become commoditized: We all know of the growing trend to allow third-party merchants to sell through their online stores. With Sears in the U.S. and Tesco in the UK both opening their own “online marketplaces,” we expect to see more and more online giants creating portals and marketplaces within their sites that small merchants can sell though.
- Customers will become less price sensitive: The biggest myth of the Internet was that customers will be able to compare prices easier, and therefore only buy the cheapest item out there. We now know that only 14% of consumers “always buy the cheapest option,” everyone else is looking for a balance of brand trust, added value, and great delivery time along with competitive prices. Throughout 2015, more and more customers will come round to this way of thinking.
- The growth of PayPal, and the decline of eBay: With a big public split planned for 2015, eBay and PayPal will soon be separate entities, and have separate ownership and management. We expect this to be good for PayPal, as it will open up the market to new potential customers, including eBay’s competition. For eBay however, the forecast is not as bright. We’ve seen lots of stories recently about projected layoffs at eBay, and the lack of growth over the holiday season. Hopefully though, eBay will see this as an opportunity to reinvent themselves, and will emerge stronger for it. We’ll have to wait to see if this is the case.
- The Chinese invasion: Since its public offering earlier this year, Alibaba has shaken the roots of the e-Commerce world. With a market cap of a quarter of $1 trillion, it is now worth more than both Amazon and eBay combined, and if they can work out how to break into the U.S. market, which means competing with the logistical giant that is Amazon, its potential to grab market share may be unmatched.
- A more automated industry: For years now online marketers have relied on algorithms for media buying and ad placements, but now the retail world is waking up, with human decision-making slowly being phased out of Internet retail systems. Everything from restocking, pricing, logistics and promotions are being handled automatically, which leaves more time for sellers to focus on the important things, building their business and ensuring they have a prosperous and profitable 2015.
Shmuli Goldberg is Director of Marketing for Feedvisor, a technology that manages more than $1 billion in inventory for professional Amazon sellers.
