eCommerce has changed the way that businesses work. Especially in the last decade or so with the rise of smartphones, eCommerce has never been more accessible. According to Statista, the eCommerce percentage share of total global retail sales rose from 7.4% to 14.1% from 2015-2019, almost doubling. But what exactly does eCommerce mean?
What is eCommerce?
In short, eCommerce is any transactions that are conducted electronically over the internet. This means anything bought via the internet on a computer, a tablet or a mobile phone, falls under eCommerce. Typical eCommerce transactions can vary from books bought on Amazon, cars bought on eBay and music bought on iTunes, any purchases carried out online is eCommerce. Even financial services such as stock investing or online banking falls under the eCommerce umbrella. By a large margin, eCommerce is the largest industry sector in the electronics industry.
How eCommerce has risen
Because of the advances in technology, eCommerce has grown significantly. As a result, traditional bricks and mortar businesses have had to adapt. It is now extremely rare to find an established high street business without an accompanying eCommerce website. As well as that, there has been the growing trend of eCommerce-only businesses forming in the last 15 years or so. Although business like Amazon, who are eCommerce-only, have been around for a while now, it is incredibly more common now for big players in industries to be online-only. For instance, ASOS in the fashion industry and Netflix in the entertainment industry. These online-only businesses have risen as the overheads are a lot smaller to start and run an eCommerce business than they are when opening a store.
What it means for the future
The growth of eCommerce is only forecasted to increase over the next few years, and this is no surprise as the internet becomes more and more accessible each day. This has had, and will continue to have, a big effect on the job market for years to come as eCommerce skills will become more and more in-demand and eCommerce careers continue to grow and become necessary in the business world.
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