Study envisions eCommerce in 2016

Mobile on the move

Forrester’s first prediction is that Amazon will continue its American retail growth, increasing market share and gaining ground on Wal-Mart and Costco, the country’s two largest retailers. Amazon is currently number three.

Mobile devices will become even more dominant as a sales channel, with most American retailers already getting 30 % of online visits from smartphones. In that regard, Forrester believes digital assistants like Amazon Echo will penetrate the market even further and customers will also use more voice-operated commands according to the researchers.

Business-focused sellers will also make changes to their approach, with more self-service options to compete with consumer websites. They will also hire more staff, to offer long-distance purchase support from within and limit the need for travelling representatives. eCommerce-focused software will become more elaborate, so that large companies can not only sell items, but also fine-tune their marketing, analyze their efforts and automatically alter prices.

Stores will not disappear

The Forrester Research study also mentions several things that will not happen, like the fact brick&mortar stores will not disappear, while buy-buttons on social media will not capture a large share of sales.

The company also believes investors will still be looking for interesting start-ups, even after several start-ups had to present negative results over the past year.

The researchers also do not believe that online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay will impact the business-to-business world too much, but that these marketplaces will largely focus on the regular consumer.

The report also mentions that B2B sellers will not get a decent insight into their omnichannel performance in 2016 and although the researchers do predict that will change, they do not think it will happen next year.