No End to E-commerce
February 8th, 2005 by Adam Cuothe
According to Linux Insider‘s Jennifer LeClaire:
“A stroll down memory lane reminds us of terms like ‘stickiness,’ ‘eyeballs’ and ‘personalization’ that once captured the essence of articles about what it takes to be successful on the Web. However, even as we look back at 10 years of growth, many analysts have one eye on the future and they are saying, we’ve got a long way to go.”
I agree that we’ll see a lot of change and innovation in the e-commerce domain, but I disagree with the feeling that there is a long way to go.
LeClaire notes how Forrester research has figured on-line sales account for about 12 percent of retail sales. Whether that number is cozy for those people purveying via the popular domain of yesteryear’s phreaks is one thing. I’ll bet they believe there is always room for improvement. Why mention phreaks? This is about the evolution of e-commerce, we ought to start at the genesis. Remember the days when a kid in Holland could make a phree phone call to order himself a shiny new laptop computer with a borrowed credit card number? And have it delivered? Where did he get credit card number? A BBS. Back then, the BBSes couldn’t help much for customer relationship management, nor could they support much in the way of predictive customer behaviours, but they offered a personalization feature or two (like personalized colors, usernames/handles, and e-mail). Reflect on that.
The on-line experience has evolved but saying it has a long way to go, implies its going somewhere, it has an end. I don’t mean an end to buying on-line but an end to the evolution of the on-line experience. Could it be that this experience can reach a saturation point in terms of ease-of-use, availability, accessibility, and effectiveness? Forrester’s predictions for on-line retail extend to 2010, is that our end-point?
In fact, let’s make a full circle back to the phone arena (our phreaking phriends I mentioned above) Ms. LeClaire points out the rapidly expanding cellphone consumption services that hook in with our Web-based e-commerce. The “E” is for electronic after all and all that is electronic will be inter-netted. So forget about feeling like there is an evolutionary end, that’s not the question on which we should be inquiring. Instead think about the what will happen in the e-commerce expansion as we move into access points and methodologies currently unheard of. The phone is as good as conquered.
August 9th, 2005 at 09:44
I don’t think we’ve reached a saturation point for retail ease of use. The much hyped m-commerce is becoming a reality. At the 3GSM 2005 conference in Cannes, Nokia unveiled its new Nokia 3220 phone that is
supports “Near Field Communication” (NFC) for m-commerce: your phone acts link a wireless debit card at your retail check-out.
http://press.nokia.com/PR/200411/966879_5.html
David, I would also be curious to read more about your thoughts on mobile phones vs PDAs and how converged mobile phone/PDAs can become an enabling “platform” for enterprise users (from IT to execs).
August 9th, 2005 at 09:45
Good call on the Nokia press release, that is a perfect example of the “as yet unheard of” technologies on the commercial horizon. You’ve heard the stories of strangers plugging into one another’s iPods, the Nokia Near Field Communication (NFC) shell can bring that sensation to a whole new level. Touch the phone, it’s fun and cheap
This brings to mind the oldest profession in the world… right off the streets and directly into your converged phone/PDA task list. Had the escort set some ambiance using her iPod evening collection, perhaps a little Nokia tap could suck out that musical memory (for a fee) and start a viral marketing trend toward one’s friends. Why stop there, as the phone/PDA devices continue to merge, they’re picking up photographic capabilities. It’s conceivable that a john or two could want to capture the moment with a video memento to enjoy later. A little tap could automatically download, pay, verify via Internet bank system, and unlock digital rights access (unless you’re using an open source phone). In the end, you’ll probably be able to beam the receipt to your accounting software.