Mary Meeker is a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers and, according to Forbes, the 77th most powerful woman in the world. Every year for the past 20 years, Mary has published her Internet Trends report.
This year’s iteration features data that provides you a more nuanced understanding of the ecommerce landscape, including information on global Internet penetration rates, the growth of mobile advertising, seamless shopping experiences and user generated content.
Here are three takeaways for software vendors:
1. Everything needs to be optimized for mobile—from emails to landing pages to shopping carts. Any status change needs to be integrated across all license seats on all platforms, both mobile and desktop. In short, today’s ecommerce landscape requires you to focus on, not individual touchpoints, but the holistic customer experience. Surprisingly, the report includes nothing specifically about the subscription economy.
2. Consider the global market. The report discusses the development of ecommerce giants like China and India. It confirms our assertion that emerging growth markets like China and India are on the rise, but they still have a long way to go before we can expect the kind of revenue we might expect from more mature markets.
3. Find new and exciting ways to distribute user generated content. Like Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is relying on its greatest strength—user generated content—to explore the world of ecommerce. Are you investigating how to use these channels as part of your content and brand strategy? Don’t just talk about the efficiencies created by your product or service—explain how they solve enterprise level pain points. Consider how to get bloggers and your high profile users to post about your products. Google started displaying tweets on mobile SERPs, so that should prod you into focusing on Twitter.
