The world of online commerce is rapidly evolving, with new technologies and trends shaping everything from marketing approaches to product presentation and customer service. In fact, with so much change taking place it can be difficult to feel as if you’re always apprised of the latest innovations.
Fortunately, while new platforms and social media crazes come and come with impressive rapidity, the broader strokes are slower moving and thus more predictable. That’s not to say that it’s not important to keep abreast of the key developments that look set to shape the way we shop and access entertainment and services.
Failure to adapt, or an assumption that you know which way the wind will blow has led to the collapse of some of the world’s largest brands after all, from Blockbuster who banked against the rise of streaming, or Kodak which similarly assumed that digital photography would never catch on.
Fear not though, as it’s easier than ever to keep up to date with the key developments any aspiring e-commerce mainstay needs to know, as our rundown of the top online business trends doing the rounds today amply demonstrates.
Life After Algorithms
Algorithms have utterly revolutionized the way we live, work and shop online. By filtering the vast amounts of data modern people have to deal with on a daily basis, algorithms supercharge our ability to find what we’re looking for; in some cases even if we didn’t know we were looking for it!
Yet for all the appeal of algorithms, they’re not without their problems. For one, they require huge data-sets in order to work well, making them unsuitable for more bespoke or limited areas of focus. There’s also reasonable trust issues to contend with, as an algorithm is ultimately unable to back up its decisions with experience or insider know-how like a dedicated person or team may.
This latter point has led to a growing number of dedicated platforms, such as CasinoReviews, which furnishes gaming aficionados with a comprehensive directory of personally reviewed and ranked online casinos to explore, pivoting to focus on providing users with a trust-worthy service rooted in industry expertise. Whether a prospective gamer is on the hunt for a good deal on baccarat, or wants to figure out which of the many platforms on offer hosts the right stake levels or game selection for them, sites such as these back their offerings with a commitment to garnering trust through eschewing mere algorithmic selections from their rankings.
DeFi is Coming
Decentralized finance, often abbreviated as DeFi, is already beginning to make a huge impact on the way people think about spending money on the internet. This term typically refers to transactions that are stored on the blockchain, as well as digital assets like cryptocurrencies. The most popular examples of DeFi in the world today are the major crypto-coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the fates and fortunes of these are often used to chart the broader development of the industry at large.
There are specific drawbacks to DeFi that have thus far limited their widespread uptake by conventional ecommerce platforms. For example, the relative volatility of crypto means that the price, and thus value, of such currencies can fluctuate wildly, especially as the vast majority of coins are not tied to a fiat currency.
Yet advocates of DeFi are quick to state that these are mere details that need to be ironed out, and it’s not as if the DeFi revolution isn’t already gathering speed with a growing number of sectors – including automotive, following the tentative adoption of crypto payments advocated by Tesla in recent years – seeing the obvious benefits of offering this payment process.
Those benefits, for the unaware, are pervasive. For one, DeFi offers unparalleled security and anonymity, factors that are increasingly welcome in our increasingly interconnected and digital world. DeFi is also dynamic, as brands can create their own currencies or tokens for use with specific products, and provide incentives to users for adopting them over larger coins.
Undoubtedly we are still some years from crypto’s true mainstream moment, though the widespread investment and advertising in the sector demonstrates that there are many people backing its inevitable success.
