Shopify has released a new report titled ‘Future of Ecommerce’ which is worth a read for a couple of reasons.
As a SaaS platform with its own payment gateway, Shopify has access to a lot of data about what people are buying, how often and how much they are spending.
But with all these reports, which in the end are written to get more merchants onto the platform, it is always interesting to see how the Shopify’s marketing department spin the numbers to come up with predictions.
The insights are very top-line and with the exception of Japan, the markets are not very diverse.
There is a link to the report at the end of this article.
5 Predictions for the Future of Ecommerce
The report identifies 5 trends. Again, these need to be considered through the lens of who Shopify is trying to onboard.
- ‘Young’ Consumers will change the business landscape. ‘This group is not actually defined anywhere in the report, though reading between the lines, there are references made to consumers above 35 as a comparison.
- Physical retail will transform and this will give local businesses advantages.
- Consumers want to shop independent. This is a statement of intention and may not be reflected in actual behaviour.
- More consumers will vote with their wallets. This is a great marketing slogan, but doesn’t actually mean much. Once you get into the details, there don’t seem to be statistically relevant differences here.
- Fintech and disruptive payment models will continue to enable Ecommerce from a consumer and merchant point of view.
‘Young’ Consumers Will Change Ecommerce
Shopify is a Millennial company. It owes it’s success to entrepreneurial people who understand digital. The ‘Future of Ecommerce’ report does not define what it means by a ‘young’ consumer, but it does make comparisons between 35-54 and 55+.
Unsurprisingly, consumers are less willing to visit physical stores during a global pandemic and so there has been massive growth in online shopping. This was especially true in places like the UK, where ecommerce is relatively mature and Italy, where strict lock-down was in place.
Social Media and Ecommerce
The report states that “Brands will need to adjust the way they do business to meet new customer expectations.” BUT this is a Executive Summary kind of report. There is no real depth to it.
Just over 54% of ‘young’ consumers discover ‘independent’ retailers through social media. This is more than older age groups, but it’s unclear what the numbers are for non-independent retailers.
Only 28% of ‘young’ consumers said they purchased via social media. In other words, 72% of young consumers aren’t using social media for online shopping. The key word here is ‘purchased’. It’s unclear what is meant by this statistic.
While Shopify would like to think that they are leading a revolution to empower ‘young ‘ customers to make shopping decisions to have a positive impact on society, only 32% said this was the reason they did it. This was only 4% higher than the next group up..
Up next – The Advantages for Local Business provided by Ecommerce