| Is Growth in eCommerce Surprising? |
|
|
|
| Written by Administrator | |||||
| Thursday, 28 May 2009 | |||||
|
We've been tracking the increase in EDI activity over the first months of 2009. From my own intuition and from your comments, this increase is counter to what any of us expected. At this point however, there seems to be an identifiable trend in the traffic, and it certainly wasn't from a source I expected. What's been reported to me only goes to strengthen the idea that this world is increasingly a global trading community. If we didn't already have evidence of the interconnectedness of the international trading community, the coordinated decline in our mutual economies brings the phenomenon into focus. What's interesting is the way trading relationships have changed over the last few months. According to Steven Smith, President of GCommerce, a provider of trading technology services, primarily to the automotive industry, "our business is way, way up. We will grow another 100% this year. In additional international business growth is even faster, thanks to the dynamics of the Mexican market." This is not unlike what has been reported by Jim Frome, Chief Strategy Officer & Executive Vice President for SPS Commerce, who has seen an increase in activity from their offices in China. According to Jim, "We've seen a spike in activity from our China office. The increase is not particularly coming from an increase in imports, but from a push to bring more Chinese factories onboard." And as a backdrop to this trend, we reported in March about the increase in business RedTail has been experiencing. The conclusions I draw from these observations is that business is continuing to be transacted, and the concentration has shifted for many companies, suppliers and customers alike, away from growth, and toward increasing efficiencies. These providers are nor reporting additional customer accounts coming into the fold. But they are reporting increasing numbers of suppliers being onboarded. For international accounts, it's probably no coincidence that the implementations are in the form of SaaS services. These facilities can be implemented by simply logging on through an internet connection, rather than locally installed software applications... a much less costly alternative both in implementation and in support. If you're experiencing the same trends, we'd like to hear about it. In fact, if you're finding something different, let us know. | |||||
Powered by JoomlaCommentCopyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.Homepage: http://cavo.co.nr/ |
|||||