A Dark Future For European E-Commerce, Not Only Caused By Brexit

The year 2018 will be decisive for many Internet traders, and this will not be due to the Brexit negotiations and the policy change in this area.

Greg Ashton, analyst, considers that new technological thresholds will be crossed: "most traders are not good at conversational trading. Now that Amazon echo lives in our homes and instant messaging applications such as Whatsapp overshadow social networks in terms of active users per month, merchants have to change the way they address consumers. The best brands already use "chat" services to interact with their customers, and translate their need for repetitive buying. "

Greg Ashton omits a crucial point - control. Amazon, Google, (and now Apple with the "HomePod") have direct control over what is offered first by the box you have at home. The catch? What the digital assistant Alexa chose at first glance may well never be your brand. However, this is not the only concern existing for the E-commerce community; I interviewed a number of eTail Europe stakeholders (eTail being a series of e-commerce conferences), who are confronted with multiple-order disruptions, on the issue of the difficulties facing them, and They seek to settle by 2018:

The saturation of the market is a major problem for Constantin Eis, co-founder of Casper, specializing in the sale of mattresses: "The biggest problem we will encounter in e-commerce in 2018-2019 is the saturation of this market . When launching Casper in 2014, no one had ever heard of a startup officiating in the sleep sector. Casper has upset the mattress industry, creating the category of selling online mattresses and propelling it. We will continue to distinguish ourselves with better quality products designed in research and a design concern both brought to a higher level, to deliver a better experience. "

The infrastructure gives sleepless nights to Peter Williams, director of Boohoo.com: "I have to make sure that the organization's infrastructure does not act as a brake on the company's ability to the demand."

Thomas Nieslon, of the Tesco distribution group, thinks that the biggest problem of E-commerce at the moment is the customer experience: "I would say that the most important problem for E-commerce is the issue of e- Using the customer experience as a strategic differentiator, across screens (mobile, web and in-store). To do this you have to understand each customer and personalize the experience (not just the product recommendations) according to him. "

Payments without borders are a source of friction for Pouya Boland, CEO and co-founder of Chiquelle, an online shop: "The lack of" technology "in payment solutions and the numerous technical problems to connect different systems and platforms represent the Difficulties that we will always encounter in e-commerce in 2018-2019. Cross-border payments are also a challenge, not to mention the fact that we are still well behind the European level, and even more so in comparison with the United States. "

Smart businesses have a strategy for online commerce that goes beyond the smartphone, but they also know that any strategy requires a solid understanding of the human component, as well as the technological component. The year 2018 could be a year of major turmoil if brands do not understand this quickly and are not acting accordingly.

This year, ETail Europe will be held from 20 to 22 June.

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