It’s strange to think how long it’s actually been, but the online marketplace has served as a destination of choice for millions of consumers each year for more than a decade. Such a distinguished length of prosperity represents untold – probably billions – of successful business sales and purchases, with a similarly innumerable amount of customer conversions.
But given the current fluctuating economic climate, many experts fear that the golden age of the ecommerce marketplace has already passed. The average consumer, so the argument goes, has never completely embraced online shopping, and that given a choice will choose to purchase goods and services from traditional brick and mortar storefronts. There’s no room in tough times, the argument goes, for businesses that “only” exist online.
It Ain’t Over Yet
Yet important signs indicate that such pessimism may nevertheless fall short of complete accuracy, or even verisimilitude. Many ecommerce businesses are thriving, growing in size and market position even as their profits expand. Their prosperity gives the rest of the ecommerce marketplace both comfort and food for thought. Studying their success also seems more or less necessary.
Mom and Pop On the Online Frontier
Reliable signs point towards the ecommerce arena becoming increasingly filled with small and home-based startup ventures. As men and women seek additional sources of revenue with which to augment their own livelihoods, the ecommerce marketplace will see increasing numbers of small, relatively simple online storefronts. Many will participate in vending and drop shipment business models that let them sell products with a minimum of time investment and effort.
These stores almost can’t help but draw comparison to the typical “mom and pop” stores that once formed the backbone of the American economy. With the larger online megasites forced to scale back their diversity of product offerings, these smaller, more flexible ecommerce storefronts will likely rush to fill niche markets and consumer demands that the larger stores were forced to leave behind.
Fulfillment Services Making A Difference
Fulfillment distribution services and mail order fulfillment companies will likely play a crucial part in the development of these new, smaller online ventures. Fulfillment companies are able to grant smaller, startup ecommerce businesses with a level of logistics management and order fulfillment otherwise impossible or impractical at an early stage of business development. As more online businesses grow smaller, the fulfillment company industry will grow to support these businesses’ back end.