Over the next 10 years, online retail will continue to gain popularity in both developed and emerging markets and as a result, logistics companies are set to play a key role in providing vital supply chain management solutions that are able to evolve with consumers’ changing shopping habits.

"The study explores future scenarios with alternative views of what e-commerce globally could look like for consumers and businesses in the near future, depending of various economic factors. The different future projections are based on a detailed analysis of the most influential factors effecting economies – from energy and raw material prices to technological, political and social factors, to retail and consumption patterns. E-tailing – the sale of goods and services through the Internet – has exploded globally, especially in emerging countries and despite the various possible future scenarios , it is clear e-tailing will continue to boom."

“Currently, e-commerce already makes up 8% of the overall trading volume in Europe. Depending on the scenario, this share could rise up to 40% in developed countries and up to 30% in today’s emerging markets."

“While e-tailing can facilitate the transaction of the changing consumer trends, the delivery of the product needs to be considered. Many retailers put significant focus to attract customers, but more effort needs to be paid to facilitating flawless delivery to customers. Even more so when deliveries begin being measured in minutes, as opposed to hours and days. This will require logistics to adapt, as well as deliver competitive advantages, such as offering same day delivery and flexible returns.”

“In the future, logistics will take over the role as an enabler for online retailers even more so than today. As a logistics company, we have a good overview on companies in various industries in almost all countries of the world. In Africa, we are continually noticing the rise of e-tailing on the continent and we are increasingly becoming an advisor to these businesses and partner for success, as opposed to a just a traditional service provider."

More info here.

Source Getelastic.com

Only 42% of UK SMEs currently offer customers the option of paying by card, recent findings indicate.

"According to a research from global payment solutions provider Barclaycard, SMEs are losing out on GBP 7.5 billion each year by not offering customers alternative payments. Despite three-quarters (74.5%) of all retail transactions across the UK now being carried out via cards, three in five (58%) SMEs are not currently able to take card payments."

"Of these, a quarter admits this has resulted in lost sales opportunities. At present, only four out of ten (42%) offer customers the option of paying by credit or debit card. Of the 58% that don’t, over a quarter (28%) choose not to because they believe this would entail significant cost, and one in ten (11%) think it will be too complicated and wouldn’t know where to start."

More info here.

"Echelon is the biggest tech conference in Southeast Asia, which took place a few days ago in Singapore, and RedMart is one of the top e-commerce companies in the region in online groceries, with US$12M raised so far, 200 employees in a bit less than three years."

"E-commerce is eating the world… and there’s still room for disruption"

"As Roger Egan stresses, e-commerce beat brick and mortar on every point, from price (no space to rent or idle employees), product range (no physical limitation to ware houses) and of course the experience (no queues, no heavy bags for groceries)."

Source e27.co

"And it’s a vicious circle. Once online shopping starts in an industry, there’s no going back, as better prices/range/experiences keep people online, increase cost of maintenance of shops with less revenues."

"Southeast Asia is quite an untapped US$330 billion market with less than one per cent of shopping actually taking place online. Little wonder that companies like Rocket Internet, Alibaba or Rakuten all invest here."

"First, you can see the field of e-commerce as a game of platforms. These two pictures show how different it works for:

• B2C e-commerce (less control on experience, on stock availability) such as Amazon and RedMart or Lazada in Southeast Asia
• Traditional marketplaces (lot of selection, no customer experience) like Tmall, Rakuten in Asia
• Asset Light Instant Delivery Marketplaces like FoodPanda, Instacart, Uber, eBay. Now, who partners with retailers and have personal shoppers who buy the stuff and get it delivered in an hour or a day
• Subscription based e-commerce such as BellaBox, Dollar Shave Club — highly convenient if you have the purchasing power
• C2C platforms like Taobao
• Private Label and value added services such as Zalora, Warby Parker, Bonobos (you send back what you don’t want)
• Daily Deals such as Gilt, Groupon
• Price comparison engines — mySupermarket, Pinterest, VroomVroomVroom, mogujie.com — where you select from many, keep only the best
• Fulfillment/Delivery such DHL, or recent alliance of SingPost and Alibaba, Ta-Q-Bin
• e-commerce software platform to ensure the last mile delivery.

Recent e-commerce trends in the industry includes:

• From “the everything store” (Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com) fighting with big retailers such as Walmart or Tesco, teaming up with delivery and added services, and a few being out of the scope (Bonobos: let’s do everything ourselves)
• Blurring lines between logistics and e-commerce companies (the site is the easy part), between retailer and manufacturers as well (what future for P&G or Unilever?)"

"Roger Egan played the game of predictions and gave a few cool insights and bets that we share here:

• The great e-commerce convergence: B2C and marketplace converge (purchasing power of B2C + fast growth of marketplace) as seen with Amazon buying Zappos, Diapers.
• The entire control on supply chain and logistics win: The site is easy, the supply chain is hard. It’s hard not to think about how Apple made a closed garden, but one which works.

• Tech companies and e-commerce companies converge, especially if we take into account the recent moves of Google Express, Alibaba in Singpost, Apple into Beats, Uber into same-day delivery ambitions.
• Content, community and commerce converge, with Pinterest being an obvious case (and winner), where pictures can be shared and links back efficiently to e-commerce websites (you can now even have e-mail alerts when the price of one of your pins drop)
• Ecosystem wins, with a bigger value than the sum of its part.
• Retailers will become manufacturers: now that they master the distribution, why wouldn’t they be tempted to build the things they sell? P&G and Unilever may well be next on the list of big disruptions
• Convenience and gratification are key: drone-delivery, 3D printed replacement parts, will increase brand loyalty.

These trends should be a tool for you to use and ask yourself where do you position yourself and potential lines of future disruption."

More info here.

Ecommerce will account for USD 53 billion of global FMCG sales by 2016, meaning a USD 17 billion (47%) increase as compared to the present USD 36 billion.

"Asia will be a major growth market. South Korea will continue its rising trend with online accounting for 13.8% of FMCG sales by 2016. Presently, 55% of Korean shoppers buy online. Online FMCG market share will continue to grow rapidly in Taiwan and China to achieve 4.5% and 3.3% share of the total FMCG market respectively."

"UK online shoppers buy on the internet once a month and their carts are 5 times bigger than offline (in most countries online shopping carts are twice as large as their offline equivalents)."

"However, click and collect offer in France, referred to as “Drive”, is predicted to outperform the UK by 2016 with 6.1% versus 5.5% of market share respectively."

More info here.