Influence of technology in electronic commerce

 

Influence of technology in electronic commerce

 

The arrival of the Internet has changed the way of understanding commerce. It has expanded the area of ​​influence of companies previously limited by physical dependence on the point of sale. The way of communicating with the customer has also changed because the digital medium has a greater reach. Advertising offers new advertising formats and is affordable for all types of companies (advertising at a more affordable price than traditional formats). 

• Accessibility : the business is accessible from anywhere, at any time and from any medium. Technology is no longer a problem and it is the user who sets the tone. Until five years ago, the main online purchases were made from the personal computer at home or from work. Today, you can make any transaction from any device. Companies have a greater investment capacity because costs are reduced.

• Technology: There are many alternatives to build an online store that do not require a large investment capacity.

• Visibility and Positioning: the business is potentially accessible and visible to any consumer. Positioning becomes a key element in eCommerce strategies. The presence on the Internet does not guarantee visibility.

·          There are hundreds of pages available on the web but only 4% of the web pages in the world are indexed (that is, they are visible). In the digital environment, the radius of influence to attract consumer attention is achieved through positioning.

 Technological evolution  eCommerce

·          In 1995, the first online stores consisted of a catalog of products. The order was processed electronically, and then delivered by ordinary mail. The payment was initially made on delivery.

·             Banks had worked with the main bank card entities to provide a secure transnational system, but the first payment gateways did not become available until 2000.

·          The arrival of PayPal brought a new experience in the payment process. PayPal integrated with the banks and added security in data verification to its platform. The time of payment was simplified. With PayPal, the user makes the payment by entering the email and password on their platform. In this way, the consumer does not provide any banking information to the online store. 

The moment of payment maintains a constant process of innovation because it is one of the most problematic points when managing an online shopping experience.

·          With the online stores already consolidated, with a product catalog, a shopping cart, more advanced logistics and means of payment suitable for the digital medium, social networks arrived in 2003.

·          Just one year after the appearance of social networks, in 2004, Web 2.0 appeared , named for its interactive nature. It consists of adding "social" functionality to online stores and corporate Web pages. Users can comment, rate products, and share opinions on social media. The concept "consumer" evolves towards that of "prosumer", it is no longer a customer who buys products, it also produces content.

·          The predisposition of users towards the generation of content made electronic commerce adapt its processes to include social networks as a channel of interaction (years later Social Commerce appeared). 

 

In 2006 , thanks to technological evolution, digital content appeared. E-commerce stores start selling digital content, mainly videos, music, games, applications etc. and the mobile device, acquires a special relevance.

·          Shortly after, the appearance of new devices (e-Readers and Tablets), gave rise to the arrival of new digital content; e-books and multimedia content appear.

·         Mobile personalization becomes a trend (setting ringtones, wallpaper, etc.). Business models for the end customer (B2C) evolve to include the concept of subscription (Subscription) and payment on demand (Pay per Download).

·          E-commerce is evolving again, digital content does not require logistics, it is downloaded. The shopping experience moves from an exclusive use of PC, to a multi-device environment (PC and mobile). This would be the beginning of multi-channel in e-commerce.

But without a doubt the most relevant change in recent years has been that of the online advertising ecosystem. It reached its peak in 2007 and allowed e-commerce to use digital marketing strategies.The technology developed for the digital advertising environment the Adservers, which are the online platforms that serve advertising on the Internet. These platforms are the ones that show ads on social networks and websites. The campaigns are configured according to a specific objective (to attract more traffic to the Web, obtain more registrations, increase sales, improve reputation, etc.). Technology makes it possible to measure each of the clicks that the user makes.

·       Soon after, the technology called Real Time Bidding (RTB) arrived, which is a system real-time auction for advertising spaces that connects with Adservers . This system improved the way of investing in advertising, since it allows companies to bid on spaces based on the interest they have for their campaign (the category of the page, the theme, the device on which the user browses, the type of the client profile that the page has etc.).

·          It is precisely the appearance of Adservers and RTB technology that have made the current advertising model possible. In traditional advertising, results cannot be measured, however in online advertising it is possible, and therefore investments can be optimized based on the results obtained (performance) defined according to the objective of the campaign (reputation, recruitment , traffic). In addition, you can access a broader advertising supply / demand ecosystem, where you can know the result in real time.  

In 2010 the first collaborative platforms appeared . Clients are skilled, demanding Internet users, who compare and measure their decisions. The purchase impulse of the first years is transformed into a thoughtful purchase process led by this increasingly daring consumer, who values ​​the content and collaborates in its creation.

Since 2015 we have been living in a new era of electronic commerce. The arrival of Big Data has made possible the generation of predictive behavior models and the development of consumption patterns for the customer's profile. This technology is helping e-commerce stay ahead of customer needs. E-commerce is continually reinventing itself and technology is its driving force. 

We are in the era of “Smart e-commerce”, where the objective is to predict what the client wants before he knows it himself, to be able to anticipate the client's needs and attract his interest towards what he is not yet aware of. needs to.