In 2018, eCommerce/digital influences will go up and there will be a rise in in-purchases. As of now, eCommerce by itself does represent almost 10% of U.S. retail sales and that does figure a growth by nearly 15% annually. In fact, one could say that digital commerce has indeed gone beyond “buying something on a website” to a series of interactions that do rely on technology in order to move goods.

As these figures do suggest, stores can in fact no longer survive without being present on their customers’ preferred channels; retailers do need to fully integrate digital commerce in order to thrive. Similarly, B2B is nearing the eCommerce tipping point and will also disrupt and become more frequent in 2018.

There are several popular leading eCommerce agencies with retail and B2B clients such as Fujifilm, Structube, Grimco, Birks, Stokes, Garneau, La Vie en Rose, Birks, and SAIL, to name but a few, Absolunet has an indeed front row seats when it comes to eCommerce trends.

Shop retail is gaining ground and not dying. Merchants will have to focus on showrooming and webrooming, events, product demos, in-store experiences and more.

Online (“pureplay”) merchants will grow their physical footprint as consumers do continue to place a premium on both the versatility and also on the depth of online shopping and the convenience of buying, picking up and returning items locally.

Brick and mortar players will digitize their physical infrastructure and also begin to roll out new store features and formats based on customer experience and convenience, with a strong digital flavor.

One is shopping in B2B environments. The focus is also on local searches and local business by mobile users which promote sale within 24 hours. Digital campaigning and investments are more advanced and have become more accessible to retailers.

By combining the mobile devices and payment, social media, personalization, geolocation/mobile tracking, real-time inventory with several advanced analytics tools, ERP, CRM and POS systems, retailers will also be able to find out which ads, listings and site visits lead to in-store visits and purchases.

a dollar spent on digital thanks to a reliable attribution model between digital and in-store: ROPO Ratios (ROPO: “Research Online, Purchase Offline”)

Bring the in-store ROI of digital ads, finally.

Retailers will now measure the in-store ROI of digital ads, finally.

Retailers will now know how many dollars of in-store sales are attributable to every dollar spent on digital thanks to a reliable attribution model between digital and in-store: ROPO Ratios (ROPO: “Research Online, Purchase Offline”)

we know how many dollars of in-store sales are attributable to every dollar spent on digital thanks to a reliable attribution model between digital and in-store: ROPO Ratios (ROPO: “Research Online, Purchase Offline”)

The Disruption of B2B eCommerce.

The perfect storm is about to hit the nearly 1 Trillion $ B2B eCommerce sector.

Changing B2B Buyers’ expectations are pushing the need for B2C-like functionalities, at a time where B2B investment in commerce capability is a priority for a majority of B2B CEOs. The growth of the digital-savvy millennial workforce, mobile ubiquity and relentless optimization of eCommerce technology is forcing the hand and pace of the traditionally slow-moving B2B sector.