E-commerce jumped 10 years ahead in 3 months. Did your strategies do the same?

The numbers are in. A recent study by Bank of America and Forrester revealed that e-commerce jumped up to a 33% market share from 16% in 2019. Check out this graph.

If you are a brand or retailer, you are still probably suffering from the whiplash this caused on your marketing plans, retail stores, and even your websites. That kind of growth is almost impossible to deal with, even if you already have a strong website.

Inventory shortages, customer service requests, shipping demands, logistics, and just keeping track of everything are problems that have been showing up even when everything is working right. And on top of that, normal business operations were all hampered by work from home policies that had to be implemented at lightning speed to avoid any hick-ups.

Many retail stores had placeholder websites because 95% of their business was done online prior to Covid, and this tectonic shift caused them to immediately need to perform at the same levels as companies whose primary business is online. Now that this shift has taken place, what types of technologies have been accelerated?

As CEO of an augmented reality company primarily serving the e-commerce space, I can tell you that the timeline for AR has been substantially bumped ahead a few years. One of our customers, Bullfrog Spas, typically sells hot tubs at in-person dealerships. Covid shut down all of their stores, and because they already had augmented reality up and running, it saved their bacon. Their customers were able to confidently view products from the safety of their home (or backyard) and see how a new hot tub would help their stay-at-home life.

Shipping insurance is another area that is exploding right now. I know it sounds simple, but with such a dramatic increase in packages being shipped everywhere, consumers want to ensure that their products arrive safely and are protected against theft or damage. E-commerce companies are also working hard to account for these losses. Companies like Route are innovating in this space and growing like a weed due to such a dramatic increase in e-commerce and the associated growing pains. They charge the customer 1% of the purchase price (minimum of $1 charge) to insure the product arrives, protecting both the buyer and the seller. Such a simple yet powerful business model.

Personalization is another area with which many companies struggle, yet consumers are expecting this more and more. Vans does an incredible job with their custom shoes implementation. Vans makes the experience accessible to all--mobile web, desktop, iPad, etc. and it works smoothly. Consumers can build their own shoe with pre-made textures and designs with ease. Users can even upload their own photo and make their shoe as unique as their imagination allows. This is a trend that is only going to increase, and where companies can, they should focus on making scalable solutions that will help their customers feel like they are receiving a personalized one-of-a-kind experience.

Finally, experience matters. How many times have you visited a website where you shopped and when you were finished you said, "I can't wait to go back." Many stores, like IKEA pictured above have turned shopping into an experience (and even a journey). When you walk into a Cabela's or a Scheels, kids race to the taxidermy animals and the fish tanks and the ferris wheels while the adults are enveloped in incredible product experiences left and right. You leave the store and you can't wait to go back.

With the growth in e-commerce and continued fall of many retail stores, brands and retailers are left to figure out how to make the online shopping experience so good that you just can't wait to go back again. I have sat on panels where people throw around ideas of virtual try-on rooms and virtual shopping carts, fully immersive VR experiences, and anything else you can imagine. The journey is well underway, but still FAR from over to figure out how to turn the internet into an experience that people actually like and want to go back to over and over again.

How do we get to the point where shopping online isn't just a high tech version of shopping from an at-home catalogue?

In the end, with such a dramatic shift in shopping behavior due to global events, it's time to stop doing things the way they've always been done and find new ways to engage the shopper and move the customer experience ahead 10 years. I look forward to hearing your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.

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Jon is the CEO and founder of Seek, the world leader in augmented reality for e-commerce. Learn more at https://seekxr.com.