The way we shop is rapidly being influenced by scores of innovative young companies who are helping retailers, brands and consumers fundamentally reshape how goods and services are bought and sold. A new report says mobile, online and in-store shopping are quickly converging and startups are disrupting the traditional retail ecosystem.
Architect Partners, the M&A advisory firm exclusively focused on Internet, mobile and digital media clients, today published “The Evolution of Shopping“. ”Shopping is at the early stages of profound change,” according to Eric Risley, managing partner of Architect Partners.
“Our newest report, The Evolution of Shopping, highlights why this evolution is happening, offers a framework to describe a very complicated ecosystem and features some of the most innovative companies making things happen.”
Consumer centric strategies emerging
“Retailers and brands are leveraging these changes to devise and implement strategies that are more consumer-centric. An entire infrastructure is emerging to support their efforts,” according to Dr. Phil Hendrix, Director of IMMR, a research consultancy and contributor to The Evolution of Shopping.
“We stepped back to the fundamentals to help us understand the innovation we’re seeing,” explained Steve Payne, Partner with Architect Partners. “We crafted a seven step framework describing how products are bought and sold. We then mapped over 300 companies against this framework.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. retail sales exceeds $4 trillion annually. Much of this spending is likely to be influenced by this evolution.
Incumbent suppliers to retailers and brands such as SAP, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, NCR, Epicor, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and many others have major stakes in the outcome.
Disruption is emerging from a new set of competitors such as eBay, Amazon, Salesforce.com, Google and Apple. Many emerging companies will also be important disrupters.
“Marquee M&A transactions have already occurred within this area, according to Tom Brehme, principal with Architect Partners. “I’d highlight eBay’s M&A appetite which has included the acquisitions of Hunch, Zong, Magento, WHERE and GSI Commerce for a total of over $3 billion just in the past year.
“We’re aware of over 75 significant M&A transactions under the theme, evolution of shopping, announced since the beginning of 2010.”
Entering the holiday shopping season tangible signs of this evolution are clear. IBM’s Cyber Monday Report 2011, demonstrated online shopping continues to register strong growth, up 33% from 2010. Also, mobile device initiated purchases are beginning to become meaningful, representing 6.6% of Cyber Monday 2011 sales.
Access to The Evolution of Shopping presentation is available on Architect Partners’ website.
Related Stories:
- Mobile shopping surged on Black Friday, biggest increase in the South
- Web and mobile fundamentally changing the way people shop
- Cyber Monday online spending soared 33 percent over 2010
- Search ad budgets, online sales revenue soared in 2010
- Cyber Monday racks up 36 percent growth, says ChannelAdvisor
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Tags: Amazon, American Express, Apple, Architect Partners, Bay, Epicor, Eric Risley, Evolution of Shopping report, Google, IBM, M&A activity, Mastercard, Microsoft, NCR, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SAP, Tom Brehme, Visa
