When eBay entered the scene in 1995, the dot-com bubble was just getting started. In fact, it took another decade and a half for this company to truly capitalize on its full potential. Soon afterward, competitors started entering this market and eBay fell behind faster-moving brands like Amazon. Now, in 2019, the power of the online marketplace is so much ahead of every other market that it is not even a fair comparison.
After doing a quick analysis of what companies like the aforementioned two provide, it does not take long to figure out why they are so successful. Just looking at Amazon’s Prime package, per se, is enough to deduce how online shopping is going to be dominant for a long time. So, what are some of the main disruptions that the online marketplace brought to the world of shopping?
Tracking Spending Patterns
When people used to buy their items at local stores, they would seldom track their personal expenses. Why? Because the paper trail that they left behind was difficult to follow. Nowadays, however, data-tracking is one of the most powerful tools that the online marketplace provides. To better understand this concept, consider random newsletters and marketing campaigns that companies e-mail to current and prospective buyers. Although these types of promotion may appear random in nature, they are not. In fact, brands from around the world spend billions of dollars on customer research in order to be able to properly target them based on previous spending patterns. Well, without the ability to track online information, this would be impossible.
Convenience
According to the team of ASP.Net backend and CMS developers from Clarity Ventures, the only way to take someone’s market share is to offer a better service or product, or charge less for it. With the online marketplace, people can obtain their items without having to visit an actual store. Thus, the convenience is not even comparable as the online retailers win this debate every single time. Well, this is also why eBay was able to start a new era of buying. People recognized the dot-com bubble as the more advanced and modern way to purchase items and slowly switched from face-to-face transactions.
Innovation
As with everything else in the world, all industries are a subject to never-ending innovation that reshapes the way in which they operate. This is why Apple’s iPhone was able to easily break through a market where many other established competitors were already operating, or why Tesla’s electric vehicles became a sensational invention that replaced a lot of people’s gas-powered cars. Well, the online marketplace was the next natural step in the spheres of shopping. The only question that ever really existed revolved around identifying the company that would be innovative enough to start a series of forward-thinking changes.
Unparalleled Accessibility
Clarity Ventures further reminds that the generation of Millennials is dedicated to promoting flexibility and simplicity. This comes as a great benefit for modern organizations because most of their bottom lines revolve around such concepts. To give an example of this, consider some of the ways that people can transact on Amazon. First, they can choose whether they do it on their phone, tablet, computer, or any other internet-powered device. Then, they are allowed to use any electrical payment method ranging from traditional credit cards to newly designed software like Apple Pay. As far as other factors like location and timing go, they are absolutely irrelevant. Thus, it is hard to find more accessible platforms than those operating in the online marketplace.
Low Barriers to Entry
Ultimately, an incredible benefit of the online marketplace is low barriers to entry for sellers. Meaning, large companies are not the only entities that can offer their products online. For example, the growth of e-commerce has made it possible for individuals to operate their own online stores with products that they create. Thus, entrepreneurs can make their own businesses and operate online for a relatively marginal cost when compared to the costs of establishing physical locations. This gives rise to a healthy level of competition that will benefit the buyer market. How? By providing customers with multiple purchasing options from various sellers who are all competing with each other.
