Ideas
What Is D-Commerce?
By Eric Valden, 26th January 2020
The world has been made aware of the phenomenon that is E-Commerce ever since the 1960s. The early 90s saw the rise of online payments, more notably when Pizza Hut and Sting CD introduced the first types of secure online payments. Ever since then, the E-Commerce industry has changed rapidly, with new systems like Krepling, Shopify, and WooCommerce forever changing the market.
In the new modernized age, retailers are now required to cement their digital presence in order to survive and convert visitors into customers. Through new innovation, anyone is now able to leverage technology to advance their business models and play a role in the ever-growing digital shopping experience.
But with new innovations, entrepreneurs are now beginning to find new ways to change the game and leverage new ideas. A new business model is now merging from entrepreneurship circles, a completely unique, never seen before business model that was not even possible 10 years ago and that will begin to change the industry like never before. Enter d-commerce.
A simple, and user-friendly tablet. Anne Howell | Krepling Design
What Exactly Is It?
Digital commerce (D-Commerce) is not a new type of model, but is now in the way it is being harnessed, much like dropshipping was a few years back. It is another form of e-commerce used by associations and entrepreneurs that deliver products online. D-commerce is being applied by companies and individuals that sell courses, subscriptions, documents, or any other form of electronic content, and the digital commerce store in question then collects payments, handles customer refunds and billing, and manages other accounting functions for online publisher clients.
This type of model is now changing the industry as we once knew it and is experiencing unparalleled shifts as customers have taken the hold of the industry’s driver seat through the use of platforms like WordPress and Krepling.
The Shift From E-Commerce to D-Commerce.
With the increased usage of mobile devices and new forms of internet penetration, users have now been exploiting popular digital platforms for procuring services and products.
This type of outsourcing is nothing relative industries have never seen before. Many entrepreneurs will remember the rise of dropshipping, and how new and aspiring entrepreneurs were able to leverage off the success that was Aliexpress to their own benefit as a startup. The same revolution is now beginning with the digital hemisphere.
As soon as most of the major enterprises realized an apparent change in consumer buyer behavior, they began scaling up business models that put emphasis on digital channels to streamline their retail experience.
The main shift is being seen through the application of the pay-as-you-go model in digital commerce. Customers start an account with a digital commerce company and can purchase courses and content from publishers, but they only have to relay their financial information once. This makes for a more secure online environment for the seller and buyer.
Bloggers, magazine publications, online course sellers, betting pundits, and academic researchers are all major players in the digital commerce field. Some digital commerce companies and entrepreneurs are reselling other’s content and services (now being conned as “Dropservicing).
This form of business can be very profitable for service providers, such as website designers and SEO agencies, and digital commerce companies alike, and, depending on the business contract, the d-commerce company may get a cut of the service company’s profit.
D-commerce is scalable by its very nature, meaning that there are no apparent limitations on the availability of a product or service once it’s been created.
Since everything happens digitally, the only limiting factor is the technology required to create, deliver and support the product (from the vendor’s perspective), and to purchase, receive and use the product (from the buyer’s perspective).
That technology is evolving constantly, and through platforms like Krepling more and more people around the world are getting access to it.
A man on a phone. Giles Lambert | Unsplash
The New Type of Entrepreneur.
The new age is only just beginning to see the full potential of the increasingly growing mobile and global accessible commerce technology.
The new age of digital entrepreneurs are now beginning to realize that now not only can they run their business from anywhere in the world, but they can also target international markets anywhere in the world.
If even the smallest E-commerce entrepreneurs can go global, what’s stopping the D-commerce entrepreneurs from doing the exact same?
But D-commerce has one major upside: most of the major elements of the transaction happen in one digital space on a platform like Krepling or Fiverr.
All that is needed from the entrepreneur is the drive and ability to adapt one’s digital product for overseas customers, some careful market analysis, and hiring the right team of people to develop a global marketing campaign.
This is all easier said than done, but most certainly achievable.
As for other digital products like webinars, e-books, and online courses, the new bread, and butter of many new digital entrepreneurs, there are huge opportunities for anyone willing to think outside the English-language box.
As of this writing, a whopping 53.7% of all websites are still in English, with Russian placing a very distant second at 6.3%. In fact, going down the list of languages, the percentage of online content for each language is in complete disproportion with the current number of active Internet users who are native speakers.
Content creators have yet to accommodate the fact that, in 2016, the majority of active Internet users are not native English-speakers, and that they may or may not read it as a foreign language.
Many Internet users, especially in emerging markets, have very little if any English. When they shop online -as more and more of them do, they choose e-merchants who speak their language.
The Advantages of Getting Into D-Commerce Early.
One of the major upsides to d-commerce is the ability to sell the same digital products repeatedly by providing a link to its cloud or online storage. Here at Krepling, we allow the user to repeatedly sell their digital product securely multiple times over through the provision of a secure link or page.
For example, a customer could purchase a subscription from your store that grants them access to certain posts/pages that are hidden to non-paying members (idele for course sellers).
Users can also sell software or services with online delivery like shipping a source code for an online shop developed by software developers securely, thus, digital products also have no issue for warehouse, inventory, and shipping management, creating a totally self-driven automation business.
D-commerce products can also offer passive income, personal freedom, and lower-overhead expenditure, where most products are free from product-related issues like perishing, damages, wear & tears, and other similar issues. Digital product marketing is also a very low-risk online business and offers an easy refund, no return, and payment related issues.
D-commerce also allows the business to accept payments upfront/in-advance, free from various checkout and payment method related issues (only when using a secure platform like Krepling or Fiverr).
You can also automate the selling process on a D-commerce site and expand it to affiliate sites.
With that all being said, marketing methods are differing a lot for D-commerce due to the non-tangible nature of the products and different targeted audiences.
The Global Market Is Open (and it’s yours for the taking).
In this increasingly digitized world, more and more aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners are realizing that international markets are within their reach. In fact, whether they like it or not, they now have to compete in a global marketplace. All over the planet, people are shopping online, and not just within their own borders. Global E-commerce is is here to stay, and it’s growing every year. “Retail therapy is giving way to e-tail therapy”, as a this Nielsen report put it, and the new digital commerce space is turning us into “buyers without borders”.
