From a technological perspective, we live in very fortunate times. This is the best time to be alive and one of the easiest time to become wealthy. Thanks to technological advancements, many opportunities keep showing up that weren't available before.
This has given birth to many new markets, industries and economies. Every early adopter with the right strategy has the potential to make it big. New markets means few players and less rules. Since it's technology, the pie is near infinite and keeps expanding with the supply and demand.
Overview
Remember in the old days, to have a physical store requires huge capital and resources. You have to secure the location, pay the rent, buy equipments, employ staffs, pay the bills etc. It was too much of a hazzle and on top of it, you can only sell to people around your vicinity. To scale means expanding to different locations by opening more stores. If you're not bringing millions in revenue then that's out of reach for you.Thanks to ecommerce platforms, having a digital store has never been easier. You don't have to bother yourself learning how to code, everything is just plug and play. Every process of the equation has been digitized by technology making it super simple to setup an online store.
Since it's the Internet, you have the potential to reach more than million audiences and the marginal cost of scaling is near zero. In a physical store, if you want to offer more products you have to expand the physical size of your store where as for a digital store, you can do it with a few clicks of a button.
Amazon to some extent aggressively use this model to become 'the everything store'. It's the biggest ecommerce site in the world. But you don't have to be Amazon to be able to profit from this technology, Here are few companies that start with little to no capital and grow their ecommerce business to millions of revenue;
- Gymshark; A clothing apparel brand.
- Glamnetic; an all in beauty brand
- The 5th Watches ; a watch accessory brand that sells only on the 5th of every month. Hence, '5th Watches'. (Great USP!)
- JerseyChamps; revolutionizing the jersey world.
- Manscaped; healthy grooming kits for men.
And the list goes on and on and on.
This are everyday people who leveraged the opportunity that the technology offers and decided to build a business around it.
Notice that I wrote brand on the first three on the list? Amazon sells everything so you would have to differentiate yourself to be able to attract customers. The best way to do that is by building a brand and having a unique selling point (USP).
Forecasts
According to a recently published report by Statista, the global eCommerce market will reach $5.4 trillion in revenues by 2022, up from $4.9 trillion in 2021. That's a rise of $500 billion in just one year. What's more, It's projected that there will be well over 2.14 billion people globally are expected to buy goods and services online. By 2040, it is estimated that 95% of purchases will happen through ecommerce and the industry is growing at 23% year-over-year. 93.5% of global internet users have made a purchase online.Looking at the numbers, the ecommerce industry is growing at a rapid speed which is obviously fuel by the infrastructure and network effect. More people online means more potential buyers and also sellers.
Since it's technology, massive iterations are inevitable. Having only a storefront is becoming outdated, there's a current process of gamification and making it more social. Augmented Reality (A.R) is making it possible for you to have a 3D visual image of the product before buying it. You can try on the product virtually, take a picture of it and share it on your social media profile. (What can technology not do?)
I think the goal is to make everything as seamless and hassle free as possible.
Conclusion
Ecommerce is an emerging market that's poised to dominate the commerce industry. With technology, it has become very easy to set up an online store and harness the opportunity to reach more than a million audiences. Selling digital products will be quite easier than selling physical products. For the former, the marginal cost of scaling is zero and has more profit margins than the latter. But if you want to get into physical products, then there are many wholesale suppliers to source from, Alibaba is an example.The key is to be creative. We live in a crowded marketplace, so you must have some uniqueness to stand out.