When you consider that the e-commerce business has only been around for about 20 years, you can imagine how many times the industry’s top dogs have changed hands. This change may help us predict the near future of online stores.
According to Rick Wilson, CEO of the e-commerce platform Miva, back in the day, e-commerce management consisted of both savvy programmers and technophiles.
Software engineers and developers, if they even exist, are currently working in the operational and technical front lines of an e-commerce company. In many or maybe most e-commerce companies, marketers now play a vital role.
On September 14, 2022, Wilson emailed his coworkers, “We have officially reached the age of the non-technical internet merchant.”
Wilson didn’t elaborate on what this shift away from technically-focused and toward marketing-focused leadership means, but we can make some educated guesses.
Changes in Technology.
Many previously insurmountable technical hurdles have been removed as the e-commerce business has matured. To help new businesses get off the ground quickly, e-commerce online stores like Shopify and Miva have leveled the playing field in terms of technology.
Companies had to put a lot of time and money into making safe, well-stocked websites a few years ago. A protected and PCI-compliant method of accepting payments was required. Both preventing data breaches and ranking well in search engines were crucial. They also frequently required integration with preexisting enterprise technology.
In the early days of e-commerce, it seemed like every other website had some sort of technical issue. Developers and engineers with strong coding skills quickly ascended to the top of the e-commerce industry.
As of2022, services like Webflow require no true technical experience, while Shopify demands a few development abilities (or at least a nice template). With the help of a competent graphic designer, a small e-commerce business in need of a fully working e-commerce website can do so with little in the way of programming knowledge.
Wilson’s startup, Miva, is one of many available systems that reduce the level of technical expertise needed to run an online store.
Also, hundreds of apps and tools exist that can integrate virtually any software solution imaginable without the need for any coding. Do you wish to link your online store to Amazon? It can be done with a smartphone and a specialized app. Do you require an order processing system? I have no worries. Need complete solutions for email marketing? As a result, Shopify has now poured another $100 million into Klaviyo.
The question of how to function in the digital sphere is obsolete. Internet advertising strategies are the subject here.
Brand-New Stations.
The ubiquity of e-commerce solutions means that a new type of expert is needed: the marketer.
Now, the challenge is not learning how to manage an online store but rather building a sales machine that can be reliably relied upon to turn a profit. That’s the kind of environment where marketers can really make a difference.
Identifying and scaling promotional channels has always been a challenge for marketers, but they have relied on intuition, data, and sheer persistence to do it.
These experts came up with direct marketing, created the freebie-with-purchase concept, and turned Facebook into an advertising behemoth by discovering how to employ behavioral targeting to boost online store sales.
Since the fundamental issue is a lack of sales, many e-commerce companies are now headed by marketers.
Assuming this to be true, we might anticipate a potential channel change in e-commerce and the continued pursuit of scalable prospects by marketers.
New methods of generating revenue could use a blend of influencer marketing, e-commerce marketplaces, text message marketing, and/or commerce videos.
Takeaways.
As a whole, this is excellent news for everyone working in the e-commerce industry. No matter what your motivation for joining the scene may be, now is a fantastic time to do it
One may see the emergence of a new breed of e-commerce experts who place greater emphasis on marketing and sales than on technical aspects of the industry. And this shift will most definitely cause waves in the market and open up new possibilities.
