Speaking last week at Web 2.0 Expo, Osama Bedier, vice president of payments at Google, said the convergence of three trends affecting the web -- mobile, local and personal -- is leading to an "inflection point" that promises to bring about a "great leap forward" across commerce.
He said the overall web experience for shopping hasn't changed much since its arrival in the mid-90s. For example, 75 percent of e-commerce buyers often get ads for something they already bought. At the same time, the web's potential to more fully connect with consumers is underscored by stats indicating consumers are 20 times more likely to buy something a friend has recommended.
But Mr. Bedier said the convergence of three forces -- mobility, locality and personalization -- around smartphones "is bridging the gap between online and offline in a really big way. It has the promise to bring the best of both worlds. Online, you get unlimited inventory and the best pricing. Offline, you get to touch and feel the product and you get to take it home immediately with you."
Already tapping this opportunity is Dominos in the U.K., which gets a third of its delivery orders online. Another is Tesco with a popular app that allows consumers to scan grocery items in the store and put it in an online grocery cart for an immediate one-click checkout.
But Mr. Bedier
said real progress will only come after three challenges are solved:
- Payments need to be completely digital: Accessible payment methods everywhere.
- Inventory needs to live in the cloud: Consumers should be able to find any item in any store, online or offline.
- Identity needs to be interoperable: Signing up for store credit cards to gain personalization needs to be a thing of the past. Said Mr. Bedier, "Identity in this day and age -- where you have so many profiles all over the place -- needs to work seamlessly across sites, across merchants, across use cases."
If achieved, commerce may return to the experience of shopping at a local corner store, where the owner knows customers' names and, often, desires, he states. As an example, if he's shared his identity and location, Mr. Bedier is greeted by name and offered suggestions catered to him. A shopping list has been created for items he's out of and may also include ingredients on recipes he likes on epicurous.com. He adds, "And that shopping list transforms into an in-store map where I navigate in the most efficient way possible."
If an item is out of stock, he scans the barcode to have it delivered to his house or to find out where else he can buy it. When checking out, he avoids the cash register by paying through the phone.
Still, the technology needs to converge.
"This is not about any app or any one site. It's not about any one company," said Mr. Bedier. "It's about us working together to overcome these challenges, to pull these technologies together and bring commerce -- not just e-commerce or m-commerce- - to the fold."