How Two of Magento’s Recent Innovations Provide its Omnichannel Merchants an Ability to Differentiate itself from the Estimated 2 Million eTailers in the United States
Just a few years ago, online shopping was growing at more than 20% per year. Today, that growth is stabilizing. According to a new projection from Forrester Research Inc., in 2017, online spending will reach $370 billion, which represents a nearly 10% compound annual growth rate from 2012. Shopping habits will continue momentum of its shift towards making buying online a more regular occurrence for many types of products. Growth rates will continue to shrink through 2017 as the e-commerce market matures, and the total spending base becomes greater.
A slowdown in growth does not apply to everyone; Amazon’s North American revenues grew by an average of 36% per year from 2007-2011, And nearly 78% of the total 2011 revenues reported by Internet retailer’s Top 500 merchants were generated by the 50 biggest names on the list creating a problem for other e-tailers.
The other 2 million estimated e-tailers in the United States face a task of how do they differentiate themselves from their competition. One way to differentiate from the competition is through Innovation. Perhaps, as an example, we should look back to the humble beginnings of Pierre Olmidya’s first sale of a broken laser pointer for $14.83 in 1995. This experience pushed Pierre to explore the journey his business had been on and then looking at the future, and through constant innovation laid the foundation to what eBay is today.
Earlier this week, Roy Rubin, Co-Founder & COO, Magento, owned by eBay Inc., a global leader in commerce technology unveiled new features on its latest release of its Enterprise platform. Two pivotal functionalities released help e-tail merchants differentiate themselves from the competition. Magento and PayPal, both owned by eBay, collaboratively, unveiled two separate extensions, once enabled from inside a merchants Magento platform, give a shopper the ability to “purchase ahead” and “in-aisle” functionality.
The timing and release of these two innovations have never been more beneficial than now. Retailers understand today, to facilitate a sale, after all, is more than a singular event, but a series of touch points that result in a sale. The retail industry has recently coined this behavior as omnichannel retailing.
With PayPal’s new in-aisle selling extension, Magneto merchants can add PayPal Here, PayPal’s mobile POS application. This extension lets employees process transactions anywhere in a store using a tablet or smartphone running the PayPal Here app.
After a Magento merchant enables in-aisle functionality on its site, an employee, using a smartphone or tablet can conduct a transaction through its online shopping cart. The extension creates a “Charge with PayPal Here” option as a payment method. Clicking that buttons places all of the items selected in to the shopping cart including billing and shipping information, where the transaction can be completed using a credit or debit card through the PayPal Here application.
The in-aisle selling extension includes the flexibility to handle order fulfillment either in-store or through delivery. Merchants can also email customers a receipt for their purchases.
Magento merchants can also provide its customers with remote ordering, as well. Customers can browse a merchant’s catalog, pay using their PayPal accounts and arrange for pick-up. Customers receive an e-receipt which could have their name, a pick up time or a unique QR code that is automatically generated through the application that they would take to the merchant in-store area to pick up their items. Merchants are provided an in-store fulfillment console to handle order fulfillment that can be accessed through a browser running on a tablet or computer.
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