How e-commerce is to continue

If you want to continue to prevail in e-commerce, you have to think about mobile optimization and cross-media. By Timo Oelerich*This month, the Cologne-based EHI Retail Institute and Statista published their annual market study on e-commerce in Austria and Switzerland. The unsurprising result shows strong growth in Swiss e-commerce. Based on manual research and direct surveys of retailers, 250 online stores for physical and digital goods were scrutinized for each country. The resulting rankings paint a clear picture of who is ahead and how far ahead - at least in terms of sales, which increased by 26.5 percent to around CHF 5.2 billion compared to 2012. Digital goods included and with a focus on B2C.Graphic: The 20 top-selling online stores in Switzerland Above all, the detailed statements on the structure of Swiss e-commerce reveal a number of interesting facts (basis: 250 stores). Here are a few examples:- a good 17 percent of stores sell from abroad to Switzerland (no longer homeland security)- 57.2 percent are also active in stationary retailing in addition to online, although only 24 percent also offer self-collection.- around 27 percent of all stores additionally send out print catalogs.- around 5.6 percent of all stores use ebay.ch for distribution.- Amazon seems to be of only moderate interest to Swiss online retailers: only 14 percent sell their products there.mobile-optimized offerings are also a topic of discussion. Overall, 38 percent of online stores use pages/apps optimized for smartphones and/or tablets, including shopping functions. Against the backdrop of the enormous potential, this is still very little.The situation is quite different when it comes to the use of social media. Facebook is, as expected, right at the top and is used by a good 79 percent of all online retailers. Twitter comes to 61.2 percent and Google+ to (an astonishing) 41.6 percent. And something else of a surprise nature: YouTube is used by 50 percent of store operators. However, it remains unclear what the ratio of "Yes, we have an account there" to "Yes, we use it every day" is when it comes to the use of social media.ConclusionThe overall picture of Swiss e-commerce generally leaves a good impression, although there is still a lot of catching up to do in certain areas. Hardly any customer today will understand that an item ordered at home (or on a mobile device) cannot be picked up or returned at the store on the way home. Those who do not adapt their sales structure to the changed buying behavior of their customers - and still persist in channel thinking - will probably sooner or later belong to the statistical group whose sales "shift" to the competition.How long can Swiss e-commerce continue to grow at this pace?People in Switzerland are not shopping any more than usual. Shopping behavior is changing - and therefore sales are shifting. The classic mail order business in particular has felt the effects of this in recent years. However, according to Patrick Kessler (President of VSV), this is almost over. And then? Where will online retail get its future growth from?Today, around 87 percent of the Swiss use the Internet. Most of them regularly. In turn, 88 percent of Swiss Internet users shop online, and a full 70 percent even do so several times a month. Sales growth can therefore almost only be achieved through higher transactions, increasing purchase frequency or competition. E-commerce needs new growth drivers.It can be assumed that future growth for e-commerce will be predominantly at the expense of the channel-thinking stationary retailers, because the digitally native consumers of tomorrow are already waiting in the wings. Or as Patrick Kessler so aptly put it:

If 2 percent of new digital consumers are added each year and 2 percent of "analog" consumers are lost, there will be a lot of free retail space in the next 5 years. A-locations are still popular, of course, but in B- or C-locations, stationary retailers should only sign very short leases. Because it will happen fast, faster than many experts believe! The online retailers are ready, the brick-and-mortar retailers too?

There is actually not much to add to this. This means that every stationary retailer is once again urgently recommended to examine its cross-channel integration at the strategic and conceptual level. And for all others, mobile should be a weighty topic for 2014.If you would like to find out more details or take a look at Austrian e-commerce, you can download the complete study "E-Commerce Market Austria/Switzerland 2013″ directly from the EHI Retail Institute or at Statista download for a fee of EUR 480.---------------------------------* Timo Oelerich is a specialist for e-business, e-commerce and online marketing projects with a focus on increasing the overall efficiency of online sales solutions through conversion optimization as an overarching meta-discipline. Other key areas of expertise: Project management, web analysis, information architecture, usability, e-commerce law (CH/EU) and quality assurance.