Personally, getting into eCommerce was a complete accident of exploring options and just following through on whatever seemed interesting at the time. After an internship, I was taken on as a full-time employee. Did a lot of work on SEO and site optimisation, moved onto coding and user experience, and developed more using different tools and methods to improve websites as I went.
When I arrived in the industry it had already flourished, the ‘black hat’ days of SEO had been and gone and we had to actually work hard at getting sites to the top of Google. The more I have learned and progressed within this industry the more I see how important eCommerce has become to us all. No one buys things anymore without checking out the online reviews. No one just goes to the shop that’s closest to buy something now, we search for the best value. And Amazon has challenged everyone to go big or go home with their next-day delivery standard.
Whether you’re dipping your toe with a Facebook business page or learning to design your own website to sell you products or skills – eCommerce is as key to life now as the internet itself and to not jump on and learn is to be left in the dust.
The future of eCommerce
There are many highly intelligent and well-informed blogs out there that can tell you the ins and outs of eCommerce, the latest trends, the upcoming storms. There are scary stories of when sites have been hit by the latest Google algorithm, from which many normal people never actually figured out why their sites suddenly got shoved off the search. With these blogs and tools however you can learn how to appease the search machines and get the prime spots on their lists.
The future however is in eCommerce. If 2020 has shown us anything it is that when all else fails – we can get it online. Businesses that never touched these online tools were suddenly shut down to the world and forced to expand their reach to their customers using online tools and many found they’d been there waiting.
We like easy things, we like speed and after 2020 most of us like the safe distance that can be afforded by ordering online.
The majority of what there is to learn about eCommerce and how to action it is online. We’re a chatty bunch and generally, we do give away our secrets for site views and high online interaction. If you have time and interest the best way to progress in the future would be to explore website building, SEO, PPC, Social media advertising, and UX optimisation.
Very few business owners however would have time to obtain this knowledge and maintain their businesses. The future of eCommerce is the majority of businesses progressing to realise that they need to source this expertise to excel and they either need to gain this knowledge for themselves or hire someone that does.
In my opinion, the value that can be given to a brand through an online identity can be easily outlined and reported on to show the worth and benefits of hiring someone who knows what they’re doing, for small business owners however even a bit of online knowledge could make all the difference in the future.
As a culture, we need to learn to invest in ourselves and choose the right tools for our businesses. eCommerce wraps these needs up and packages the tools ready for the industries to embrace and grow.
IV Digital 