The State of the Ecommerce Industry //

The overall trend of retail lunging forward into ecommerce continues at a record pace. 8.6% of all retail spending happened online in 2016, and U.S. ecommerce industry grew 15% year over year. In 2017, that pace isn’t going to slow down. Sure, more customers are beginning to shop online for the first time. But the other noteworthy trend is that customers that may have shopped online for shoes, gifts, and electronics are now beginning to shop online for everyday items at an even higher rate. This, taken into account with the fact that the behemoth known as Amazon isn’t getting any smaller, puts an enormous pressure on retailers. Customers want their items at rock bottom prices. Oh, and they’ll need free two-day shipping with that, or else they’ll do a quick search for your item on Amazon and buy it from their Prime account. Even if larger retailers like Macy’s and Walmart (who hasn’t seen any quick wins after acquiring jet.com) were able to figure out how to emulate Amazon’s fulfillment model, the giant would likely remain a step ahead. Now the ecommerce giant has patented drone deliveries, powered by a pilotless blimp serving as a floating warehouse and recharging station. Retailers like Big R aren’t going to win online by trying to be the next Amazon. Big R is going to win by serving its ecommerce customers in a way that Amazon never could. Big R will continue to set itself apart by offering niche items and a higher level of service, backed by the knowledge and support of 700+ retail employees inside brick and mortar locations to help customers with order pickups, returns, exchanges, and product questions. Big R will win by offering a best-in-class ecommerce platform built for the next decade instead of the previous one. Big R is considering Magento at an optimal time. Having already gone through the growing pains of transitioning from M1 to M2, Magento has swallowed the pill that every other ecommerce platform will soon have to swallow- and the proof is in the migrations. Internet Retailer reported that Magento added 23 Etailers that rank among the top 1,000- three times that of Demandware. Further, more and more extensions continue to flood the Magento marketplace, creating a vast resource for Magento developers in 2017. Popularized by podcasters like Pat Flynn, self-employed developers craving passive income from their work will continue to innovate and improve the third party offerings on the Magento Marketplace. In conclusion, the competition for Big R’s online business has never been fiercer- nor has the opportunity ever been so great. This migration, mired in both risk and the promise of reward, MUST be successful for Big R’s sake. The industry isn’t going to wait for us.