Embracing digital commerce may be retailers’ best bet for staying ahead of a fast-moving industry

Myriad companies have made digitally driven commerce work for them, but others have struggled to find success or are unsure where to start.

With the rise of social commerce and big players like Amazon, TikTok and Twitter getting into ecommerce in the metaverse and livestreaming, it is going to be a force that must be reckoned.

This market’s gross merchandise value in the U.S. is expected to be $99 billion by 2025, and it’s expected to grow 25% each year, according to GP Bullhound Global Insights’ Technology Predictions 2023 report. This is in comparison to China’s $1. 02 trillion market, predicted to grow at 26% each year. Overall, the market is forecast to hit $3.8 trillion by 2030.

This is an area we have been following closely, especially since the pandemic forced us to shop online. Many companies are doing amazing things.

Take Kahani, for example. Its founder, Jesse Pujji, told TechCrunch in October that the future of mobile e-commerce was going to look like TikTok, Instagram and Snap, and modeled Kahani‘s first product to be a “Stories-like” feature so that brands could show their clothes being worn “live” versus static images of the front and back views.

Earlier this month, Amazon launched Inspire, a social media-inspired feature that provides a TikTok-like shopping experience with short-form videos and photo feeds.

Despite the pandemic-induced online shopping frenzy having cooled as more people venture outside again, with all the different methods available for digital commerce, driven largely by livestreaming, social media and livestreaming, it’s time take a look at the future of this industry, who the dominant players are, what the challenges will be and what brands will need to do to keep up.