Ever more sales via smartphones

The e-commerce market has is also changing due to international giants and new technologies such as augmented reality and virtual currencies. According to a survey for the ‘E-Commerce in Poland’ report by Gemius for E-Commerce Poland, 47 pct of respondents use their mobile phones to make purchases. The development of mobile technologies and RWD websites can only increase the usage of smartphones in online shopping as will the introduction by Google of its Mobile First Indexing principle. According to retail platform Shoper, the greatest retail changes are taking place in the fashion industry, where every third order is made on a mobile phone. Virtual reality headsets have also been slowly changing e-commerce. In Australia Ebay and the Myer retail chain have created a virtual store which VR visitors can wander around. Augmented Reality has also been changing shopping in a similar way by allowing the customer to see the product placed within their own home. Firms such as Aliexpress and Amazon have also been changing the e-commerce market in Poland. With a growing number of cheap Chinese products on the market, businesses will have to change their business models as well as their image and Amazon is continuously rumoured to be about to enter the Polish market. “What smaller stores can learn from bigger ones is that flexibility is important in business. The operations of the e-commerce giants show that they are not turning their backs on retail sales in brick and mortar stores and furthermore they are buying into and investing in such chains. However, smaller companies can appear more attractive when they present the people behind their stores and show that their history results from their owner’s passion,” claims Jacek Zientkiewicz, the brand manager of the Shoper platform. Bitcoin is rather controversial these days. Its price, which has been growing for many years, has now started to fluctuate. However, this does has not changed the popularity of the virtual currency, which can also be used in e-commerce. Accepting such a form of payment requires some special programming but now over 100 stores will take such currency claims Shoper.