E-commerce or Electronic commerce refers to the buying or selling of goods & services through the medium of the internet.

The covid-19 pandemic caused shutdowns and travel bans across the world. This forced consumers to choose online mediums over retail for their shopping. And so, the pandemic has caused a dramatic peak in the e-commerce business. Recent data from IBM’s U.S. Retail Index says that the pandemic fast-tracked the switch from retail to e-commerce by almost five years. It is also very likely that this revolution would be permanent.

Let’s discuss some promising opportunities in the e-commerce industry.

Selling Handmade Items
Many people with artistic skills need an online marketplace to sell their unique handmade kinds of stuff such as clothing, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, toys, soaps also candles, etc. find among the people who have a great interest in such products. Anyone who has a talent for producing handmade goods has huge potential to profit. You just have to find your expertise and partners and make sure that your uniqueness is your own selling point in this competitive business. Hence an e-commerce platform that sells handmade goods is highly lucrative.

Etsy is one such successful online marketplace that connects buyers & sellers around the world with its delightfully unique collection of custom-made & handmade items.

Selling Education Courses/Services and Products
Online education platforms offer several advantages like a flexible schedule, comfortable learning environment, pacing options, career advancement, skills enhancement, cost-effectiveness, etc. as compared to the traditional education system. According to the latest market research, the global e-learning market will make approximately $325 billion by 2025, which is and this apparent through the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.5%. Thus, it can be concluded that e-learning systems are becoming more essential in the educational sector as they give the students the flexibility of learning at one’s own pace & comfortable environment which has a positive impact on how they absorb information, which is vital for academic success.

Online Grocery Store
Before the pandemic, buying groceries via online stores was mostly preferred only by the Millennials. The COVID-19 shut down in the year 2020 has caused a revolution in grocery shopping. As a safety measure, people started purchasing their essentials via online medium. This led to a boom in online grocery selling businesses. To keep up with the competition, the retail grocery stores also started online sales, either by creating their websites and apps or by utilizing the prevailing delivery services.

As per research conducted by Mercatus and Incisive, online grocery sales will make about $ 250 billion by the year 2025. This means that there is a huge opportunity in the online grocery industry in the coming years.

Online Furniture Renting 
Furniture renting is a growing popular trend among the millennials and Generation Z, as they prefer hassle-free maintenance & management of furniture while cutting down the huge initial capital cost. Professionals who keep moving to new places find renting furniture as a money & time-saving, easy option. Renting gives choices in the latest designs for fresh looks every season. Work from home culture in the pandemic times further boosted the furniture renting businesses as people prefer having a comfortable & efficient work setting at home. These transformations are most likely to stay and grow further in the future, making the furniture renting business a highly promising opportunity.

Feather, CORT Global Network, Furlenco are some of the online furniture renting successful businesses. In the year 2020, IKEA the most successful furniture selling company also got into furniture leasing in 30 countries across the world.

Online Streaming
In recent years, the Cable-TV industry is taking a hit due to the popularization of online streaming businesses. Further, the pandemic has completely transformed the entertainment industry.  In China, Livestream e-commerce has been dominant in the last few years and is expected to yield more than $60 billion this year. With lockdowns everywhere around the world & strict social distancing methods, theatres, cinema halls could not function the way they used to. This further has made online streaming such as Netflix, YouTube TV & Amazon Prime, etc. more dominant sources of entertainment. Statistics confirm that the online streaming industry is anticipated to expand to $149.96 billion from 2020 through 2024 with a CAGR of approximately 18%.

Selling eBooks
For the past several years, e-books have already transformed the publishing industry. With all the aspects of life digitizing, physical books are not preferred by people anymore. Printed books are bulky, occupy a lot of space, are not easy to carry and maintain as well. Because reading is one of the favorite activities of humans & it can never go out of fashion, e-books have replaced the printed form of books. Technologically advanced reading devices offer an equivalent experience of reading a physical book. And so the e-books industry has a huge scope of growth. An e-reader is more handy and convenient to carry around than a book.

According to the latest research e-books industry can make USD17,723 million by the year 2025 with a CAGR of 3.2%. Fiverr, Google Play Books, Amazon, etc. are some of the e-books selling platforms that exhibit the lucrativeness of this industry.

Online Recommerce 
Online Recommerce or reverse commerce is nothing but selling used goods online. Selling used cars, used home appliances & tools, used apparel, used furniture & used electronics are gaining huge popularity in contemporary times. eBay, Amazon, Carvana, Flipkart, olx, are some of the popular e-commerce platforms that sell used items all around the world. According to a study, the market for used apparel has raised 21 times quicker than the retail apparel market in the recent 3 years and may reach $51 billion by the year 2023. Millenials and Gen Z are the ones who made the recommerce market boom. There is a huge scope for the online Recommerce business with millennials who prefer purchasing used items over the new ones for their affordability as well as their sustainability.

Conclusion
E-commerce is a fast-growing and versatile industry that offers huge scope for growth and success if approached with innovative ideas and well-researched moves.