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Year 2000 E-Commerce Predictions
http://ecnow.com/top10trends2000.htm

ECMgt.com brought to you by ECnow.com
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January 1, 2000 *3,000 subscribers* Volume 2, Issue 1
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ECnow.com 2000 trends: Year 2000 E-Commerce Predictions

READER COMMENTS

Predictions From Our Readers

Our bulletin board allows readers to comment on trends and issues throughout the month. Please stop by to add your comments and see all the responses at http://ecmgt.com/bulletinboard.htm

Question of the Month

The topic for January focuses on e-commerce predictions for 2000. 

Selected Answers of the Month

***

1. Consumer's confidence in buying online will continue to grow.  Despite the fact that credit card fraud online is not higher then credit card fraud in the physical world (according to a study by VISA it is 1% of all transactions), consumers in the 90's were still cautious about on-line purchases.  The same way telephone ordering became more common in the 90's, on-line purchasing for the average consumer will become more common in 2000.

2. E-Commerce will become more internationally accepted.  While currently 85% of all websites are hosted in the US and 75% of e-commerce is conducted in America, particularly Europe is going to increase its involvement in e-commerce.  By 2003 about 50% of all on-line transactions will be conducted outside the United States.

3. E-Commerce application vendors will continue to collaborate (through mergers and partnerships) to provide businesses with complete e-commerce solutions.  Business will no longer have to purchase elements of an e-commerce solution (sales, marketing, procurement, etc.) separately and go through the painful task of making it work together, start-to-end complete solutions will become the norm.  This will allow more small-to-medium size businesses without extensive IT resources to participate in e-commerce.

4. Payment methods such as "Cybercash" will go away.  This ties into the previously made point on consumer confidence.  There is no need for these alternative methods of payment as consumers trust to use their credit cards over the web.  Credit Card companies will increase fraud protection, thereby eliminating the need for payment methods with increased protections such as Cybercash.

(T.S., Santa Cruz, California, USA)

 ***

1. I predict (brow furrowed, fingers at the temple) that some nationwide retailers, both broadly and narrowly focused, will learn to do it right on the web.

2. I also predict that that some large retailers who cannot figure it out will have some spectacular and costly failures - BN for example.

(M.P., San Jose, California, USA)

 ***

1. XML everywhere!

2. Applications Servers morph form pluming to Specialized Java Enterprise Edition/XML etc servers. i.e. the emergence of the application server farm concept

3. Wireless transactions

(D.S., Pleasanton, California, USA)

 ***

• E-everything. I think we will see more & more of the local "brick & mortar" stores/businesses implementing e-commerce strategies into their business and marketing strategies. They will offer the best of both worlds and allow the consumer to choose.

(J.G., Tracy, California USA)

 ***

1. E-Commerce will also take a place in the developing world

2. The issue of banking transactions will be the hot issue

3. Import / Export debate on the net will be the hot issue in 2000

4. Academically it will become significant and will take a place in career choosing

(PAAM, Karachi, PAKISTAN)

 ***

1. B-to-B-commerce continues to expand

2. It will become clear that E-commerce will be dominated by 'old' major player's - especially in manufacturing, for instance Fords & GMs new purchasing portals and SAPs mySAP portal - and that 'new' player's - like eBay and eLoan - will disappear

3. Digital TV will have defining impact on retail eCommerce - as banks, supermarkets, travel bureaus will prefer this distribution channel due to user-friendliness and limited competition - this is especially happening in UK and France

(S.L., Copenhagen, DENMARK)

 ***

• ASP developments for all kinds of verticalized e-commerce solutions that will allow all sizes of businesses to quickly develop on line presence for commerce (continuation of most significant event in 1999).

(P.S., St. Paul, Minneapolis, USA)

 ***

1. Proliferation on use of e-commerce applications such as B2C and B-to-B (in Singapore).

2. For countries outside Singapore, unless there is government support in similar Electronic Transaction Act or Bill as in Singapore, B-to-B will not see an immediate surge compared to Singapore.

3. The refinement of present legal bills guiding the use of e-commerce.

4. Greater commercialization and software war among e-commerce software developers.

(K.F., SINGAPORE)

***

1. Increasing credit card payment

2. Personalized e-mail marketing

(R.H., Bochum, GERMANY)

 ***

1. Open Source in e-commerce

2. Partially solving the bandwidth problem, merge of new hardware for Internet access: cellular phone, pager etc

3. More sophisticated customer oriented sites

(Source: S.W., Sunnyvale, California, USA)

 ***

1. People will become more comfortable with sending proprietary information on-line

2. People will not be able to disconnect because of the introduction of smaller and smaller office tools (phones, Palm Pilots, other unknowns)

3. There will be shopping kiosks located in bus stations, train depots and airports. These kiosks will house subscriber sites and pertain to specific audiences. What better way to spend a lay over in an airport!!!

(S.C., San Jose, California, USA)

 ***

1. You will see widespread behavioral shifts on the B-to-B e-commerce side. Because of the efficiencies within B-to-B e-commerce, you will see more and more activity (read: liquidity) on B-to-B exchanges and auctions. 

2. Net market makers with requisite and appropriate vertical expertise will see an increase in activity as we approach the inflection point of B-to-B e-commerce adoption which will occur in 2000.

3. The inflection point will occur next year because of the increased enabling infrastructure and the adoption of the Internet as a more efficient business tool. Once this inflection point is reached, the successful exchanges/platforms will see a period of hyper-growth in their space. In our business, we have already seen this behavioral shift as we watch traders move their long-term commodity contracts into forwards within the CheMatch.com spot market exchange.

(T.F., Stamford, CT, USA)

 ***

1. The next e-commerce trend will center on non-web centric approaches to e-commerce. As Internet and web commerce matures, a demographic and marketing shift will occur. Internet "pioneers", the first to work and shop the web, will be followed by less technically oriented "settlers". The next wave of e-commerce solutions will need to cater to this more traditional audience - people with disposable income and no particular interest in technology. They will demand a more convenient and orderly way to shop electronically, free from the frenzy of an overcrowded "dot com" marketplace. E-commerce will evolve to include a mix of old and new media technologies. New digital channels and more refined marketing tools will emerge to facilitate successful selling in the virtual world.

2. Let's face it.  We're all feeling a little overwhelmed by dot.com mania and all the "Yahoo and Amazon want-a-bees."  There will be a shakedown in cyberspace.  Not every digital "Tom, Dick and Harry" have the marketing budgets to support the advertising needed to raise awareness and drive traffic to a site... The one constant in the swirl of real and virtual boomtowns is that they never survive.  They either go bust or they become normal, sane an orderly hometowns.  I sense that the Internet phenomenon is fast approaching the end of its boomtown days. And that will have a dramatic impact on not just current marketing but on the long-term brand proposition of Web-based businesses."

(P.H., Napa Valley, California, USA)

 ***

• Tremendous growth of on-line shopping and web sites for small businesses

(J.E., Dallas, Texas, USA)

 ***

• VOIP flat-rate and the G-rated 3^rd Internet.

(HR, Lake Ariel, Pa. Wayne co., USA)

 ***

1. On-line financial management/banking will become more important

2. Digital cash will start to make some noise

3. Amazon will splinter into smaller entities in an attempt to become profitable (ie., control expenses)

(R.R, Mountain View, California USA)

 ***

1. Supply chain management will progress to the point where all interaction with customers can be done electronically.

2. The lack of bandwidth will be addressed by network providers in an effort to provide quality of service to customers.

(M.S., Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA)

 ***

• I believe that the e-commerce trends will continue at their current rate unless there is a increase in the interest rates and a down turn in the business sector.

(S.Y., Santa Clara, California, USA)

 ***

• Expansion of health care related activities in response to increased costs of health care to consumers impact on e-commerce of new regulations on health care industry

(A.S., St. Louis, Missouri, USA)

 ***

1. Consolidation / Acquisitions of heavily traveled sites by larger sites and media companies

2. The start of a new kind of money. Electronic dead presidents (dollars) from 3rd party organizations

3. Much tighter integration with back office systems. The companies that survive will be those that provide complete logistic solutions such as order tracking.

(G.T., San Carlos, California, USA)

 ***

1. Use of portal technology

2. Customer service

3. Enhanced profiling

4. Security

(C.S., San Jose, California, USA)

 ***

1. The growing of e-business, not only e-commerce. I mean companies will be implementing a lot of extranets for purchasing, like a business chain.

2. The changing of the e-consumer behavior

3. The new dimension of the wired workforce

4. Use of business intelligence implementations

(C.L., São Paulo, BRAZIL)

 ***

1. B-to-B will continue to be the most fertile ground for e-commerce growth.

2. Dot.coms will seek to expand their brands via relationships with more traditional retailers.

3. Investors will begin to punish dot.coms who are not making significant inroads toward profitability.

4. Competition will continue to be fierce, with the battle ground being site functionality, price, service, and fulfillment.

(M.S., Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)

 ***

• I think that the market's greatest change will be the business model Priceline has set up.  This empowers the customers with the capability to price their own consumer goods.  What this will allow is not worry about what goods cost yesterday but what they are going to pay for them tomorrow and in the future. This cuts out analyzing the past and looking at the future.  The idea is mind boggling and could be the wave of the future in e-commerce because the prices can fluctuate minute to minute unlike a typical brick and mortar establishment.

(R.K., Chicago, Illinois, USA)

 ***

• B-to-B E-Commerce will dramatically boom

(A.H., JAPAN)

 ***

1. Healthcare will "become" involved

2. Business to Business e-commerce will grow substantially

(S.C., San Jose, California, USA)

 ***

There will be several new uses of the Internet that most of us will look at and say "oh yeah, I thought about that but didn't really have the time to get involved with it".

1.  Biz to Biz...As E-Commerce gets fine-tuned the "business to business" side of things will move from bulk transfers of virtual stuff to more partnering and integration across organizational lines. This will be a natural and relatively predictable transition. Funded by the stakeholders, it will not require an "acceptance quota" to the same degree as the retail side does.

2. To me for me...In 2000 I see the focus on appliance and convenience increasing as the Internet becomes a means to achieve leisure time and convenience. The best example may be the on-line grocery store. Once they figure out how much more expedient and cost effective it would be to have the groceries waiting in front of the store rather than delivered to your house, there will be a whole new adventure. Imagine pulling up to a strip mall and not having to park! Just go to the drive through E-Com site and load up the purchases you ordered on-line before you left the office. A dozen eggs, 16" X 20" filters for the furnace, a box of crayons, and a choke collar (now, now it's for the dog). Make that a one-stop deal and people will pay for it. This type of example is becoming more obvious and will most likely drive some type of consolidation or partnering among retailers to invent a new shopping experience.

3. From the applications side I see a web-based customer profiling system for repeat customers to expedite ordering and increase familiarity.

(B.D., Maryland, USA)

 ***

• More collaborative B-to-B e-commerce between partners moving from just the large companies to medium sized companies which will participate more vigorously.

(R.R., Santa Clara, California, USA)

 ***

• Movement of EC to a service industry rather than purely product or technology driven.Outsourcing EC functions becomes very popular

(LHL, SINGAPORE)

 ***

1. Top trends will be in advertising.

2. Insurance policies and flight tickets will be sold more often via Internet.

(Source: EU Department, The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, TURKEY)

 ***

1. B-to-B e-commerce continues to steal the spotlight on B-to-C e-commerce. 

2. In order to capture major players within vertical industries B-to-B e-commerce solutions will have to evolve from a typical open auction/ exchange platform to a trading place with more options for how one buys and sells on a system. 

3. Financial B-to-B is the e-commerce industry with most innovation and growth.

4. An increased speed in the flow of data for e-commerce thanks to gains in XML technology.  Eventually leading to bi-directional transfer of data, meaning moving data from its legacy (corporate database) to another source (hand held device) where it is manipulated, and then it can be put back into the original database, rather than just a one way data dump.

(Source: I.B., Herndon, Virginia, U.S.A.)

 ***

1. Forget e-commerce! . you need e-business. E-Commerce evokes the notion of buying and selling. But your business is more than that. It is marketing and advertising. It is human resources. It is planning and strategy. It is accounting and administration.

2. Keep Your Eye On XML and PHP - EDI is not dead and gone..it has just assumed a new set of letters: XML. One of the best sources of XML information: www.oasis-open.org/cover

3. PHP/FI will soon to be as big as Active Server Pages. PHP is one more way to customize your message to the particular person visiting.

4. Watch As Colleges and Universities Begin to Offer E-Business Degrees. Only those graduates educated and equipped to deal with lightning fast change as the norm are going to succeed.

(F.S., Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA)

 ***

1. Getting past Y2K!

2. Widespread adoption of Internet technology in corporate purchasing departments

3. Consolidation of numerous B-to-C companies

4. New technologies in the realm of virtual shopping (virtual tours, virtual fitting, etc.)

(Source: J.S., Sunnyvale, California, USA)

 ***

• There would be both a qualitative and quantitative shift of the service industries (Transportation, mail, warehousing, logistics, bulk terminals) ability towards adapting and implementing change at a rate never dreamt of before.

(P.M., Mumbai, Maharastra, INDIA)

 ***

• On-line gambling will become more prevalent. Especially when "online money" becomes a more accepted idea.

(G.D., Vancouver, CANADA)

***

• The 1st quarter of 2000 will be the prime time of e-commerce. After which some new things would be developed, which makes "E-Commerce" less prominent!!

• A more professional way of promoting e-commerce sites will be available

• An amazing number of people will utilize e-commerce sites

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