Slowing online sales ahead of big digital opportunities

Canadian e-commerce performance lagging in parallel with the state of global economic conditions, but boosted by the promise of technological advancements //

By Sean Tarry

The entire world is in the midst of a bit of a self-imposed holding pattern with respect to spending and long-term investment. At least, it certainly seems that way according to digital pioneer and the Founder and CEO of e-commerce Canada, David Nagy. It’s a mentality that he says is being driven by a number of factors and influences, impacting everything, particularly the performance of brands throughout the global retail industry, and the results of their e-commerce initiatives. And, in his estimation, the reluctance and hesitance that it’s breeding among consumers and retailers alike is serving to restrict growth and the profitability of business today.

“The e-commerce performance of retailers across the country, and performance of the industry in general, seems to parallel most businesses today,” he asserts. “There’s certainly some trepidation that’s been caused by a bit of a global economic slowdown. Interest rates are spiking and deal flow is down in certain sectors like real estate where there doesn’t seem to be as much transactional activity. By and large when you speak to small business owners – they’re feeling the pinch as a result of a downwards pressure that’s been placed on just about everything, including the cost of borrowing capital. Combined, these things are resulting in a bit of a pervasive economic uncertainty. And, although it hasn’t yet led to a crash by any means, it’s definitely yielded a pulling back of sorts on spending.”

Untapped opportunities

Nagy continues, recognizing that there have been a number of global events that have gone a long way toward contributing to much of the economic uncertainty that currently exists around the world, including the war in Ukraine, which has all but debilitated the global supply chain. In addition, he cites the overall debt burden felt by the United States, as well as strained relations between North American entities and their trading partners in Asia, as other factors of note impacting business performance. It’s a collective of pressures that the digital retail expert says has culminated in some caution, with some onlookers waiting to see whether or not the other shoe is going to drop. However, he suggests that it’s not all bleak, offering advances in the latest technologies and capabilities as an area in which there are still boundless untapped opportunities for growth and innovation.

“There are an abundance of possible utilizations for technology within the retail e-commerce ecosystem that have still not yet been fully leveraged, many of which have the potential to completely transform the way businesses do things” he says. “From helping to find in-house efficiencies to the ways in which it can help us better understand how data moves and the ways to best capture and utilize that data, opportunities are abound. And, what that ultimately does is help level the playing field between the big guys and the small business owners, increasing the accessibility to the data that could up until recently only be accessed by the larger players. It’s democratizing things a bit, allowing smaller retailers to become really great decision-makers, enabling them to better understand their customer-bases and more effectively target their audiences, and helping them improve their product sell-through. This would have been unachievable just a few years ago. But, the access to information has now opened up significantly for everyone.”

Data accessibility

He goes on to explain that it’s an increase in the accessibility of data that’s going to fuel an explosion in retailer innovation, opening up a whole new world of possibility when it comes to personalization and customization. It will provide brands with more data points than they’ve ever been accustomed to leveraging, enhancing engagement from retailers and the types of services that they offer their customers, while elevating the digital and overall retail experience, facilitating its continued evolution well into the future.

“Data is informing so much of what we do today, both personally and professionally,” he acknowledges. “It’s driving the development of newer and better ways of doing things. And, driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the improvements that it’s resulting in are posing potentially dramatic changes to the ways retailers interact with their consumers and the ways in which people shop with them. It’s going to revolutionize the entire relationship, spawning the creation and introduction of new tools, and a brand new way by which the retail online experience is viewed, constructed and enjoyed by people.”

An integrated reality

Not only is the advent of new technologies helping to shore up and improve the online experience, it’s also lifting levels of in-store service and offering. However, the most powerful impact of the current technological revolution, says Nagy, is the way in which it’s helped to blur the lines between the two experiences, bringing the confluence of digital innovation and physical interaction to the precipice of a truly integrated reality.

“The term omnichannel has been used by people for a number of years to describe the combination of in-store and online options and the ways consumers traverse the different channels,” he explains. “And, although the industry and their technology partners have made incredible strides with respect to this vision, it pales in comparison to what is possible and the innovations that will be introduced over the course of the next few years, helping to create the seamless, frictionless experience that the industry’s been talking about for years.”

Transformative future

Nagy likens the current state of technological evolution and its potential impact on the digital retail experience to the introduction of the printing press or the personal computer. In fact, he suggests that the growth of today’s technology, with artificial intelligence at the centre of it all, is set to take off in the same way, resulting in changes with similar transformative effects.

“When around 800 or so businesses in North America had mainframe computers, most people couldn’t really see the wider use for them. It was a domain of exclusivity which made it economically impossible for most others to implement them and help move the technology forward. However, over the course of a decade or so, when computers ended up in billions of businesses and homes, innovation surrounding their use exploded. The same transformation is inevitable for artificial intelligence and the technologies that are driven by it. Every day new capabilities are being discovered, developed and unlocked. It’s quickly leading to the dawn of a whole new age of retail.”