Let’s look at the status of the potential customers in eCommerce forums. They have been significantly increasing ever since the pandemic swept the offline stores by a wave when governments were forced to impose a lockdown to protect people during pandemic.
Even before they set in, eCommerce platforms were picking up their pace and competing fiercely with offline stores, but after the lockdowns were imposed, it seems as if the Online Stores have the edge over the normal stores.
This clearly substantiates the fact that online stores have a lot of scopes to grow in the future. According to many reports, the eCommerce industry is expected to grow and cover a market size of more than 188 Billion Dollars three years from now, in 2025.
If we summarize the primary reason behind the rapid growth of eCommerce websites, it can be majorly owed to people quickly adapting to newer technologies. In eCommerce sites, you can now find a quick way to add a payment method or track the live location of your respective shipment.
Plus, people find it highly convenient to do shopping from the go and at any time. These regular stores are constrained by time and location; however, online stores work irrespective of time and location.
Why is the E-Commerce Industry is Booming
It can be said without doubt that the eCommerce Industry has been rising significantly over the past few years, and it is expected that the growth rates will only increase in a couple of years.
The majority of the boom in Online Stores is led by the stalwarts of the Online Industry, such as Amazon, Walmart, and so on, by increasing the investments and involvement in this particular sector.
You can also give some credit to the COVID-19 pandemic for providing some push and impetus to the Online Shopping industry.
The government policies also have been conducive to the promotion of eCommerce Sites. Many industry giants such as Facebook and Google have been continuously funneling money into the eCommerce industry as well.
Let’s look at and analyze the reasons why eCommerce sites have been growing significantly over the past:
Improved User Experience
Potential website customers expect the user experience to be flawless and without any issues. Considering these, the eCommerce websites have been engaging themselves in advanced web development to provide the users with the best possible User Interface.
The sites have also been optimized for mobile phones alongside stable application development. The user experience has also been significantly increased after the focus of the eCommerce platforms has put a good emphasis on providing after-sales support to the customers as well.
Customers’ user experience has also been significantly improved by adding newer features, especially to the liking of the tech-savvy audience. Using the up-and-coming technologies, the developers have been continuously developing better designs that are also stable.
Better Outreach
In the initial stages of the rollout of eCommerce Services, they were limited to certain cities only due to territorial restrictions. With the spread of high-speed internet in many remote areas and better penetration of courier partners, these eCommerce sites have been successful in spreading their influence throughout the globe in all the remote parts as well.
Better pricing given by these online shopping websites has also potentially increased the outreach of these websites, and people prefer online shopping sites since they save the money of traveling to and from an offline shop.
The spread of technology, specifically mobile phones, has significantly increased the penetration of these eCommerce sites since people are now better equipped with technology than they were five or ten years before.
Increased Use of Digital Payments
If you would ask a person ten years ago if they prefer cash or credit card payment, they will choose the former because cash payments are safe, convenient, and faster than non-digital payment methods such as credit cards or other payment methods.
Now ten years later, in 2022, rarely will see you a person carrying out a transaction based on cash for any reason whatsoever since with the inception of digital payment methods such as Bitcoin, Apple pay, PayPal, and so on, cashless digital transactions have taken a driver’s seat, and people find it extremely easy to pay via an online method rather than cash.
This rise in Digital Payments has given a considerable impetus to the spread of eCommerce sites since they have been using them to conduct most of their transactions.
It has been reported that more than 70 percent of the transactions will be via online or digital payment methods a couple of years from now.
Extra Investment in Logistics
As stated earlier, in a point about the penetration of eCommerce sites being limited to major towns and cities due to a lack of mobility and relevant courier partners to deliver their goods in the remote towns.
However, since then, the eCommerce sites have significantly increased their logistics investments. Some have even come up with their courier branches of the company to better coordinate with the delivery partners post the order confirmation.
The investment in logistics has significantly popularized since many people can now buy goods and services out of these eCommerce sites irrespective of the city or town they reside in.
Growth of Various Sectors
eCommerce has been growing significantly since the industries they have been involved in are also on a constant rise.
For instance, the food industry has been growing rapidly, directly impacting the food delivery eCommerce platforms as well.
Then comes the smartphone industry as well, which has been growing rapidly, and hence the eCommerce sites dealing with them have been on the rise as well.
Advancement of the eCommerce Technology Stack
In the quest to adopt digital solutions, some businesses had to build their eCommerce platforms from scratch. However, the process was tedious, with companies incurring massive costs for substandard solutions that affected the customer experience.
With demand on the rise, the popularity of monolith solutions grew. Businesses would buy an eCommerce suite from vendors and apply a basic solution. The technology was usable and robust for customers regardless of the limited customization.
Monolith solutions then evolved to headless systems, which split the performance layer of an eCommerce platform from the technology used.
The performance layer connects with the headless systems through API calls, facilitating the creation of user experience elements without worrying about the effect on the other methods.
Through these systems, businesses could develop various user experiences channels through these systems, such as Android apps, iOS apps, and websites, without compromising the underlying systems.
Headless services, the popularity of APIs, and the predominance of microservices architecture gave way to MACH (Microservices API-first Cloud Headless ). This framework can use different vendors because the technical stack is detached from the performance layer and accessible through API calls.
With MACH, critical commerce, a shopping cart, and CMS could be from different vendors. MACH is focused on enhancing micro services-oriented commerce with an advanced technology stack. MACH gave way to composable commerce.
How does Composable Commerce Work?
Composable commerce improves the MACH concept for the technology stack on the entire business. It focuses on merging modular and flexible assets necessary for achieving a wide range of business goals. This standard commerce is overly customizable.
Business owners can purchase CRM solutions and marketing automation and incorporate various supply chain modules.
Varying solutions merged with API calls can collaborate through composable commerce. Further, composable trade has a wide range of unique features and uses, making it a vital consideration. Here are some of them.
Flexibility and Agility
The Covid-19 pandemic enabled businesses to understand the challenges of having a non-flexible monolithic architecture. With a monolithic architecture, companies became less agile and non-flexible.
Many struggled to navigate the regular changes they had to adjust to the fast-evolving world. Businesses can leverage modular commerce to develop their digital platform with enhanced inbuilt agility and resilience.
Promotes Innovation
The modular architecture available in composable commerce also promotes fast-paced innovation. Worth mentioning is that failures characterize invention before achieving success.
Through composable trade, businesses can innovate without compromising core business procedures. Suppose one creation fails; you can remove it easily without interrupting other business processes.
Extensibility
Modular commerce is the art of ensuring solutions are extendable. A business can modify different assets from various vendors to make them customizable for the existing problem. Companies had to choose between developing and buying a solution in the past.
However, composable commerce allows businesses to purchase the ideal tool and stretch its functionality by creating extra features.
Ecommerce entrepreneurs want their stores to grow, but one cannot predict when a stagnant period is going to strike. Economic growth will not last forever, and when things are rough, brands that have made the best with the resources they had will stand strongest.
Understanding Evolution of the eCommerce Experience
eCommerce experienced massive growth in 2020 following government-administered lockdowns. Today, many retail businesses run eCommerce platforms alongside their brick-and-mortar stores. Various factors drive the eCommerce experience, as we shall see below.
Technology Stack
This is the technology that developers use to create the eCommerce solution. It includes server solutions, the backend, architecture, frontend, and database technologies.
Capabilities
Capabilities constitute the functionalities necessary to support the different stages of the customer’s journey, starting from the technology stack to the required logistics.
These three factors are critical in giving customers the ultimate eCommerce experience. However, the technology stack is eCommerce applications’ latest point of difference.
Customer Journey
Customer journey is the various phases a consumer navigates when making a purchase. It begins with customer acquisition and ends at post-sale service, requiring an entirely service-based commerce solution.
Finally
Should businesses adopt composability? Yes. Composable businesses evolve fast. Any company with a rigid structure and hierarchy will be less adaptable in facing challenges.
At the pandemic’s peak, businesses that could adopt alternative solutions like remote working and moving to the cloud were less affected.
However, companies that held on to traditional practices experienced reduced productivity and financial constraints. Composability is a business concept and an entrepreneur mindset. Investing in it requires a change in thinking and a shift in business operations.
