Ecommerce is now a multi-billion industry. As more and more consumers move online, and as online media channels increase our dependency on the internet, ecommerce continues to rise with sales volume increasing quarter after quarter. The internet has created an opportunity for a paradigm shift – offline brand exposure filters through to the internet, however in a somewhat diluted and third-party dependant fashion. Harnessing e commerce web development company often means harnessing search engine algorithms to increase organic search engine results – through this channel and through paid search, advertisers are not merely looking for traffic from branded search phrases. The ability to drive sales through generic and brand indecisive search queries created an opportunity for easy scalability and few barriers to trade compared to the offline world. Offline brands have the advantage in terms of search engine algorithms favoring editorially given links – something which they garner much easier than others – as well as their larger budgets and economies of sales which they can leverage from the offline world.
Intelligent marketers, who recognize the internet and how to capitalize on the opportunities it provides, are not the CEOs of ecommerce outfits seeing double digital growth as they eat away at market share of large brands. Post bubble we have seen little consolidation in the ecommerce side of the online business world either. The simple reason for this is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing has provided opportunities for savvy marketers to partner with offline retailers and take commissions on sales they refer offline. Marketers then have the opportunity to take advantage of their partner’s economies of scale, brand awareness and lack of flexibility. Affiliate marketers opt for what they see as a more scalable business model, while they sacrifice the value of a customer throughout their lifecycle and fail to use their competitive advantage to rapidly build market share when they are on an even playing field with the larger brands.
