A couple weeks ago, I wrote a piece on certain trends we’re going to see in the e-commerce industry this year. I wanted to take some more time to look into what the growing trends will be so I spoke with the Directors from our global teams to review these e-commerce trends from a global perspective of each of their markets.
There seems to be several common themes across the market – big data, mobile, social media expansion and personalization, etc. This shows that the e-commerce world truly is becoming more connected and integrated across boarders and oceans.
Russia – Vitaliy Yanko, Director of MyCommerce Russia & Emil Ismailov, Associate Director of Marketing
1. Online retail stores will continue to grow in Moscow, as a greater percentage of the population takes to credit cards (still about 65-70% of consumers pay by cash on delivery). These stores will grow in the urban areas mainly because of a strengthening economy. In more rural regions e-commerce will continue to grow because of poor assortment in offline stores. This will cause growth on payment methods by credit cards as many in these areas have not had a need until now.
2. More businesses will migrate to SaaS solutions due to the ease of implementation and the relative low-costs associated with them.
3. With sales of smartphones expected to increase somewhere between 11-13% throughout the country, shoppers will also be a part of the mobile revolution with mobile apps and services.
China – April Lee, Sales and Client Development Manager at MyCommerce China
1. Social media tools especially Weibo and Wechat play a very important role in online marketing but only in local online marketing.
2. As businesses on mainland China are unable to participate in most of the mainstream social networks, many are looking for professional companies to handle social media for them.
EMEA – Cornelia Seitz , Director of MyCommerce EMEA and Sergey Svirida , Client Development Manager, MyCommerce EMEA
1. Mobile computing will take a bigger bite out of traditional computers
2. More cross-OS applications or packages (porting existing applications to other OS / writing applications for multiple OS / Co-play between a mobile data collector and a desktop data processor apps). For example: health applications monitoring your heart rate and counting steps on your phone + desktop application with a map of your jogging course and processed results on your health condition.
3. “Big Data” is also a must in the context of 2014 trends. I believe every 5th startup in 2013 was about big data in one way or another
4. The increase in data collection will improve the personalization for e-commerce customers. Business will be able to profile their customers and track them.
5. SEPA (single European payment area) and associated changes to wire transfers and direct debit, kicking in on Feb 1st
6. Data security especially with the Prism affaire
7. There will be considerable VAT changes in the EU on January 1st 2015, so preparing for this will be a hot topic in Q3/Q4.
What trends are you expecting in your market in 2014? Let us know in the comments section.