Facebook is one of the largest advertising platforms in the world. Facebook’s transition from an ad platform to one that includes transactions will be massive. With the rollout of the metaverse, new shopping experiences offer consumers the ability to interact with digital goods or physical products before they purchase them through augmented or virtual reality shopping. It will be a tremendous shake-up in the world of online shopping and will completely change ecommerce as we know it in the next five to ten years.
This article will discuss the future of ecommerce in the metaverse and how to be ahead of the game.
The past
When you think of ecommerce from a few years ago, you imagine the introduction of Facebook ads, Shopify, and WordPress. These tools allowed business owners to create digital selling spaces for their products, reducing the need for physical storefronts. Small business owners who knew how to use Facebook ads could make millions of dollars every year reselling products from Alibaba and Amazon.
The present
Ecommerce in today’s world hasn’t changed much from five to ten years ago. The only differences are the integrations of cryptocurrency wallets or Chrome extensions that help you shop. However, since the introduction of Meta in late 2021, we have already seen massive shifts in how companies deal with online shopping. We can consider 2021 to be the start of the metaverse.
Companies like Walmart, Nike, and others have already started integrating augmented or virtual reality shopping options people can use to buy products. Companies offer real shopping in the metaverse with experiences that anyone with a VR or AR headset can try.
Nike’s introduction into the metaverse was through the Roblox game platform, creating a location called Nikeland. Walmart offers a virtual reality shopping experience with a cart and a virtual assistant named Sam, who can help you buy products. Although these are examples of real shopping where you get a physical product, ecommerce has also changed to purchasing digital goods like NFTs.
The future
Many of us have an idea of what the metaverse will look like, possibly something like the movie Ready Player One. The main issue with the current design is that it is entirely based on the existence of one company. For now, Meta, which has a monopoly on not only the name but the entire idea and existence of the metaverse, will control the entire online shopping marketplace.
This issue is why the idea may fail. A spokesperson from Meta stated that they would take 47.5% of a transaction value in the metaverse. Not only is this astoundingly high in today’s market, but it may result in ecommerce platforms and other businesses completely leaving the Meta marketplace as a whole.
If businesses decide that they do want to continue selling in the Meta metaverse (the metaverse created by the company Meta), they will surely have to get a lot of referrals from their customers or have other organic growth strategies to afford the exorbitant transaction fees. The good news is referral programs have the potential to generate a very high volume of leads. According to recent studies, 83% of customers are willing to refer a business to friends and family after having a positive first experience with that business.
The market movers
So who are the companies you need to look out for to be ahead of the game in the metaverse ecommerce world? Of course, Meta, although they are not the only ones, companies like Shopify, Stripe, and Clover are important too.
These three companies are all businesses that handle the transactions of online sales. They are the ones that may have the largest effect on the sale of digital goods and experiences that businesses offer in the future.
You may also want to look towards companies that deal with marketing. For now, there are huge benefits to older web2 marketing tactics such as email marketing, digital ads, and being present on different social media platforms. And these marketing strategies can be relatively inexpensive. For example, managing under ten thousand email subscribers shouldn’t cost you more than $100 as a bulk package.
That said, the marketing landscape may completely change in the next five to ten years. That’s why keeping an eye on the types of businesses that help small companies grow will give you a head start on where to best promote your website. Three years ago, no one foresaw how tremendously powerful Tik Tok would become for businesses. Imagine what a five to ten-year difference with a massively unique technology will do to the growth of companies.
Wrapping up
There are many opportunities to grow your small business in the metaverse, so staying ahead of the curve and listening to what the movers and shakers are doing will keep your business growing and money flowing in the bank account. Do not be on the last quarter of the bell curve when it comes to this massive change in technology and ecommerce.