Ten Themes for 2009: eCommerce Technology

[posted by Brian K. Walker]

If the last year has taught us anything it is that none of us have any idea how to predict the future. I think we can all agree, the year was full of surprises. But one of the great luxuries of the job we have at Forrester is that we talk with lots and lots of people in and around the industries we cover. In my case I am lucky to have the opportunity to talk shop with eCommerce business leaders, multichannel retailers, IT leaders, eCommerce technology vendors, industry media and thought leaders, and (last but not least) my colleagues at Forrester.

 

I am not going to venture out with any “predictions”, but based on all those conversations I want to touch on some eCommerce technology themes I believe we will see in 2009.

 

So, with that, and in no particular order:

 

1. SaaS & hosted/managed platforms go mainstream. Increasingly online and multichannel retailers cut-to-the-quick and point out at the top of my conversations with them that “we are really only interested in something we do not need to support internally or host in any way.” While true SaaS products still leave some enterprise-class customers queasy, they are increasingly interested in looking at these offerings. And nearly all are open-to or motivated-to hosted/managed offerings. Look for incumbent software offerings to add hosted/managed and SaaS offerings to the portfolio and for business models to be tweaked all around to overcome obstacles in both traditional license and revenue-share models. We will be publishing a Wave report on the top 10 world-wide B2C eCommerce platforms very soon in January 2009.
2. Social shopping picks up steam and the experiments begin in earnest. Over the last couple of years we have all seen and participated in the proliferation of the social platforms. Look for retailers to seek out ways to participate. Email is maturing for many, and Search is annualized, time for the new pony. ROIs may be elusive, but the experiments will be many and interesting. Look for affiliate marketing, RSS, comparison-shopping, and web-services to all be used in various combination.
3. B2B eCommerce platform demand picks up. For years platform vendors have waited for the tsunami of B2B deals to come rolling in, and it really does make so much sense… efficiency, customer experience, CRM, globalization, multiplying channels, and traditional distribution channels under threat. Well, it is not a tsunami, but rather gravitational pull of another planet. Subtle but there. We will see demand for B2B eCommerce applications developing, and it will be lead but forward thinking organizations who are looking to do it right and who are not in any hurry. This is why, in this economy, it is going to build slowly. I will be covering B2B platform offerings with a market overview in Q2 2009.
4.  B2C eCommerce platform demand moderates but remains healthy. If you are a client, I wrote about this recently here, but in summary - and in honor of Spinal Tap - we are seeing the volume going down from eleven to eight. Many multichannel retailers are seeing an eCommerce beacon if light in the terrible retail storm. And branded manufacturers need to replace eroded demand in their traditional retail distribution models – making the channel conflict questions much easier to navigate. All that though needs to be mixed with a very challenging overall economic environment, hence the moderation. Many initiatives may stall at signing as companies wait for the situation to improve, while others will not hesitate.
5. Predictive merchandising becomes ubiquitous, and the crowd begins to separate. “Predictive merchandising” is also referred to as “automated merchandising” or “personalized product recommendations”. Whatever term you like (or are marketing) we will see this area are the “product reviews of 2007”, where we go from stepped up interest and demand to a default feature. The incumbent concerns and cultural hesitations of merchants and marketers will be replaced with an enthusiasm for the improved customer experience and ROI. Many retailers (and the vendors) will be picking off low-hanging fruit and seeing some good results even from the lesser solutions (to start). Meanwhile the crowd of solutions will begin to separate as the vendors with traction and profits outlast, out-market, and out-invest the start-ups. For more on personalization see Sucharita Mulpuru’s great research on this from December 2007.
6. Multichannel features and services pick up momentum. This is an interesting area. Will the challenges faced by retailers lead to further multichannel integration or are the costs and challenges too high? Many retailers will simplify this down to key features and services that really meet the customers’ needs – in-store pick-up and ship-to store. Upcoming research in January will explore the customer trends and opportunities for retailers to make this easier to accomplish.
7. Google Analytics picks up share, and the incumbents fight to retain customers. As we covered in July, nearly everyone is dissatisfied with their analytics package. Google Analytics has two advantages key to this theme, 1) it is simple and 2) it is free. As budgets come under pressure, and online retailers evaluate what is working and where they are spending their money it will be hard to justify the spend on analytics even if Google Analytics is limited in eCommerce-oriented capabilities.
8. We finally begin to learn what Omniture is up to, but continue to puzzle over Amazon's enterprise solution offering. Speaking of analytics, why did Omniture buy Visual Sciences (including Atomz Search) and Mercado? Is there a “platform” in there somewhere? Maybe next year the answers begin to emerge. As for Amazon, no word on what kind of enterprise eCommerce platform offerings will re-emerge, except we know it will include “services”. The assets are too great at Amazon not to seek to monetize them in an enterprise-services context, but the garage door is down and the mechanics are busy.
9. Oracle, SAP, and  Sterling begin to figure out what to do with this eCommerce-platform -thing. Demand from the vast Oracle, SAP, and Sterling Commerce install-base for eCommerce solutions is growing from a small crowd to an Obama-sized rally. The time to offer a well formed response is now, or be clear there is no product aimed at addressing the B2C online merchants and marketers’ needs. B2B solutions are more attainable and make more sense with the tight ERP and order management requirements, but the customer experience and business facing merchandising, content management, and marketing tools still lack maturity. Acquisitions would make sense here, maybe in 2009.
10. The walled gardens begin to break-down. We will talk less about platforms and more about “eCommerce technology environments’. Keyword: begin. More on this in 2009.

 

Happy New Year everyone and I look forward to more of those conversations in 2009.

 

Cheers, Brian

Comments

[Gabriel Aldamiz]

About number 5... the latest Internet Retailer survey (http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=28884) finds that 40% of merchants will update their e-commerce sites with personalized product recommendations.

I agree there are many companies trying to solve the same problem. Among other things, recommendation engine companies will need to be financially very strong. Venture Beat had its view on a “recommendation engine” consolidation: http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/22/baynote-strands-richrelevance-will-they-survive-the-recommendation-engine-consolidation/

Gabriel

[Sundeep Ahuja]

Great post Brian. It would seem that one theme through points #2, 5, & 6 is how in 2009 online retailers will focus on improving the shopping experience (predictive merchandising, social-shopping, multi-channel) -- likely to improve conversion, as it's still hovering in the low single-digits. We agree that improving the shopping experience is the #1 thing retailers can do to survive and thrive in today's economy: http://richrelevance.com/forum/