Tag: e-commerce

Spending the past two years in a pandemic-state has not only changed the face of the media landscape but has meant that the media sales industry has had to evolve to remain relevant. There is a vast amount of information around the expanding media landscape that one might feel overwhelmed by the torrent of changing advertiser needs.

In today’s corporate world, data is power, and for a business strategy to be worthwhile, it must be supported by substantial data. Moreover, without research, it will be difficult for organisations to identify areas of improvement.

The events of the last few years have hit the fast forward button for the South African e-commerce industry. According to Geopoll, e-commerce grew by 66% YoY (Year over Year) in 2020, while brick and mortar retail fell by 30%.

Online shopping is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2022, this is according to a report by Adobe’s e-commerce division. To gain a competitive advantage and to exceed customer expectations, businesses need to discover the emerging trends in ecommerce and adopt current trending technologies in software.

With digitisation reshaping the retail landscape, the future of the industry is unfolding before our very eyes. Since the pandemic began and lockdowns ensued, retailers have been forced to rethink the way they do business and, in particular, the way they serve their customers. 

With Black Friday around the corner, most if not all, e-commerce and retailers will have that feeling of anxiousness and dread in the weeks leading up to the day asking:mWill the site or systems stay up? Will it perform under the additional load? and If it goes down how fast can we recover?

Consumer expectations of online commerce experiences, historically, have primarily been established by B2C interactions. In this ever-integrating arena, B2B players must increasingly look sideways at some well-entrenched B2C behaviours to gain a competitive edge.

New shopping habits brought on by the pandemic are creating both challenges and also huge opportunities for retailers to rethink their customer retention strategies.

Whilst listening to a recent presentation by Absa's equity analyst Samantha Naicker titled 'Navigating the Maze' on South African Food Producers, I stumbled on a theory dubbed 'The Lipstick Effect'.

Shopping has always been a social activity. Just two years ago, you would find people discussing the good and bad about their recent purchases over coffee. Today, e-commerce finds people shopping from the comfort of their home, and social commerce means they’re still shopping while being social on their preferred platforms such as Instagram Checkout or Facebook Shops.