As the categories of products sold on e-commerce websites grow, the world is slowly moving to an exclusively online shopping experience. Statistics show that 80% of Internet users are expected to make at least one purchase online this year. However, we’re still a long way from becoming a society that shops exclusively online. In fact, experts believe that may never happen. But then, if it did, it would have serious implications for everyone — individuals and businesses alike.
In this post, we will explore three significant changes that will occur if the world moved all of its purchases online.
Payments will have no choice but to become more secure.
If online shopping becomes the only option available, cybercriminals will double their efforts. There will suddenly be more possibilities for theft of information and money. Siphoning websites, fraudulent card transactions, and computer hacks will increase in multiple folds. This increase in activity will undoubtedly force security agencies to increase their efforts as well.
This new threat will force them to explore new solutions to the problem. In such a scenario, you can expect a European payment gateway solution like Powercash21 to provide even better security for vendors. You can also expect more artificial intelligence and machine learning-based solutions to flood the market.
Many people will lose their jobs, and then find new ones.
Retail outlets employ hundreds of thousands of people. These people do everything from attending to customers, ringing them out, stocking the shelves, and moping the aisles. If the whole world suddenly stopped shopping offline, all these people would lose their jobs. As catastrophic as this sounds, there’s a silver lining.
Since the shift from offline to online sales is already quite strong, many retailers are already restructuring to accommodate this shift. Job opportunities are opening up in different areas. For example, while shelves no longer need to be stocked, warehouses still need people to monitor the movement of goods. More online shopping will mean an increase in delivery rates, which means new job slots for delivery people.
Moving on to more specialized fields, the demand for programmers and web designers will skyrocket. The barrier to learning these specializations will also probably be lower due to an increase in demand. As a result, people can learn the skills and fill the available roles appropriately.
More e-commerce websites will thrive.
As it currently stands, Amazon has dominated the e-commerce industry. It stocks goods in almost every conceivable category. Small websites that thrive only do so because they have harnessed the power of niching down. If everyone on earth only shopped online, there would be a massive opportunity for smaller websites.
Additionally, the increase in demand will prompt new websites to spring up. We might also see more specializations in the e-commerce space. More new niches will be created, and new players will move in to fill the space. The bigger demand will ultimately mean there’s more room in the industry for even the little brands to thrive.
