The global pandemic has radically changed our world and how we conduct business. Stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and working from home resulted in an explosion in online shopping.
This article was originally posted on the Packaging Technology Today website. Click here to read the original article.
FinTech Magazine reported that in 2020 alone, e-Commerce exceeded $4.3 trillion, a volume originally forecasted for 2025. And a recent report by Statista revealed that online commerce will grow at an alarming pace of 50% for the next four years, from $4.9 trillion in 2021 to $7.4 trillion by 2025. This transformation is so profound that another term has recently been introduced. M-commerce now describes online purchasing using a mobile device.
A survey by Uswitch.com of over 4,000 frequent online buyers found that TikTok has the greatest influence on online buyers’ purchasing habits, followed by Instagram and then Pinterest. In addition, they discovered that 61% of shoppers admit current trends influence their purchasing, seven of 10 respondents prefer to purchase from a small business, and, on average, people will spend about $140 monthly on impulse purchases.
The Global Sustainability Study 2021 uncovered that sustainability is becoming increasingly important in consumers’ purchasing decisions. Also, today’s younger online consumers look to sustainable alternatives for the packaging of materials.
The increase in e-Commerce and M-commerce has exacerbated the selling of knock-off products. Moreover, counterfeiting is no longer an issue for just the high-end niche markets. Now everyday items, including cosmetics, consumer goods, tobacco, aerospace components, pharmaceuticals, automotive parts, and just about everything manufactured, are at risk.
Counterfeiting is expected to exceed $3 trillion by the end of 2022. And on top of the loss of revenue for businesses, fake products can also be dangerous. For example, bacteria and human waste have been found in counterfeit cosmetics.
The first step to combating counterfeiting is recognizing that you have a problem as a company. Unfortunately, many companies either will not admit they have an issue and dismiss the idea. Or, do a quick investigation and find there is a cost to anti-counterfeiting and are unwilling to pay the price.
Sometimes senior management and brand owners do not want to acknowledge counterfeiting because they do not want to “explain” the problem. Regrettably, by not taking action to prevent counterfeiting, they are losing reinvestment dollars and profits, and are actually rewarding counterfeiters.