E-commerce, once the domain of “geek types” or consumers with highdisposable incomes, has hit the mainstream. The U.S. Census Bureau says e-commerce spending increased by more than 34 percent year-over-year to US$11.1 billion from the third quarter of 2001 to the same period in 2002. And sales jumped 24 percent year-over-year, to $13.7 billion, in the 2002 holiday season.
But according to Census Bureau figures taken last fall, e-commerce revenues still amount to just 1.3 percent of all retail sales. That figure represents a slow increase from 0.7 percent in 1999’s fourth quarter, but it has not changed much at all since Q4 2001, and it is unlikely to shift dramatically even after robust holiday results are taken into account. The upshot remains the same: E-commerce makes up less than 2 percent of all retail spending.
There is definitely a disconnect here. If e-commerce is becoming an ever-largerpart of consumers’ daily lives, why does it account for such a small slice of the retail pie?
Reams of Research
One fact that does not show up in the Census Bureau figures is that consumers increasingly are using retailers’ Web sites for research, which does not necessarily translate into measurable online sales — especially for big-ticket or luxury items.
“There’s a significant amount of retail being influenced by the Web, butthere’s not a lot of final transactions happening online,” Bob Parker,senior vice president at AMR Research, told the E-Commerce Times.
Some companies, such as Circuit City, Best Buy and Sears, are trying to convert researchers into buyers via programs that allow customers to purchase itemsonline and then pick them up at a brick-and-mortar store.
Certain products, though, must be seen or touched in person before a purchase can be finalized, according to Gene Alvarez, Meta Group vice president of electronic business strategies. “Would you buy a $10,000 plasma screen online? No,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “But would you evaluate brands versus each other on the Web and get educated on them? Yes.” The Web is at work in such transactions, though its role may be hard to spot via conventional research tactics.
Social Shift?
In addition, despite e-commerce’s 24/7 convenience, consumers may be clinging to brick-and-mortar shopping because of its social aspect. Some shoppers simply like going to a mall and interacting with other people, including friends, neighbors and even store sales clerks.
E-tailers may be making headway, however, according to AMR’s Parker. He said that in recent months, more seniors and females have been booting up their PCs to shop, rather than driving to malls. And once one person in a household starts going online to shop, others living under the same roof are likely to follow suit. In a way, then, online shopping retains a social aspect — within the household. However, Parker said, this kind of activity does not necessarily show up in e-commerce research, so it is not an obvious trend.
A Broad Problem?
Yet another barrier to e-commerce growth is a lack of widespread broadband deployment, according to Alvarez. Consumers who have high-speed access can make the most of bandwidth-intensive features, such as background music, Flash introductions and streaming videos of product demonstrations. The only problem is, a large proportion of consumers do not have such connections.
Alvarez noted that if dial-up consumers encounter high-bandwidth features, they are more likely to be “furious” than fascinated.
“At least when we all call by phone, we all get dial-tone response at about the same time,” he said. “But we haven’t reached that yet with the Internet, where everybody or a large proportion of the population have equal speeds to access these sites.”
Or Not an Issue?
On the other hand, AMR’s Parker said he does not think broadband adoption is affecting e-commerce sales — because most e-commerce companies know better than to use technologies that a majority of shoppers cannot handle. If broadband were more prevalent, he noted, services like video-on-demand and massively multiplayer gaming might come into their own.
He added that broadband’s lackluster reach prevents the introduction of new Internet-delivered products and features, far more than it prevents e-commerce from growing its share of all goods and services sold.
Talkin’ ‘Bout the Basics
Even outside the realm of broadband, stumbling blocks still abound when it comes to usability. Some sites still have not mastered one of the most basic foundations of e-commerce: the search engine. Many consumers are baffled by e-commerce sites’ search tools, according to Alvarez. He calls it the “I-can-search-but-I-can’t-find-it” hitch.
“For example, you type in ‘printer’ at a site, and up come 5000 hits onprinters, printer cartridges, printer labels, toner and so on,” he said. Not too helpful — and a clear sign that e-commerce companies have their work cut out for them to increase their share of total retail sales.
Moving Toward Mainstream
Hurdles aside, one thing is certain: As the Internet and e-commerce have evolved from innovations into fixtures of modern life, consumers have grown more comfortable with the concept of conducting transactions online. At the same time, Web retailers — either consciously or unconsciously — have made their interfaces more consistent over the years, adding to consumers’ comfort levels.
As familiarity with e-shopping continues to rise, so too will e-commerce’s share of overall retail sales. Its influence may already be more extensive than it looks, and the march into the mainstream has only just begun.
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Broadband, technology, usability, etc. Yes, they’re all issues that impact ecommerce. While advances in these core areas are constantly advancing, none will address one of the larget impediments to online sales… product content. Some sites have good search functionality, great taxonomy and thin content but miss the mark on featuring accurate and complete product information once the customer finally gets to the detail page. It’s great to think that someday core infrastructure components will catch up to deliver the kind of user experience we all dream about. But in the interim, we all have the capability to feature product information that a consumer can actually use to make a purchase decision. How many sites have incorrect specifications or attributes that are not normalized (forcing one to think hard about product differentiation in the same sub-category)? It does not take rocket science to feature accurate and complete content, just a solid strategy, process orientation and efficient workflows and tools.
No doubt the transactions on auction sites such as eBay are not considered "e-commerce," yet the same consumers visiting "retailers" such as Amazon and the like are buying from eBay sellers online. I wonder if auctions were included, whether the total percentage would be affected.
One major area that was not addressed in the article is the lack of cohesive E-Commerce laws. Businesses and consumers do not know what jurisdictions and laws apply to their transactions. Businesses need to educate themselves on the global rules and regulations for doing business online. Next, they need to clearly post a framework as to what a consumer can expect and who they can turn to outside of the company if there is a legal dispute.
Companies such as ours, IBLS, are gathering content from E-Commerce focused lawyers and compiling it into capsules for easy reference. This is one solution, but governments need to also take the lead and create effective roadmaps as to #1 – how their existing/new laws apply to online transactions and #2 how their regulations mesh with other countries of the world.
Why does e-ommerce account for such a small slice of the retail pie? …Our research indicates it’s largely because most people can’t be sure they’ll be home to receive deliveries, and don’t like having stuff left exposed outside their door or taken back to the depot.