The real game changer, though, will be the combination of social online shopping with mobile phones.
Smartphone owners are much more likely to abandon a purchase in a bricks-and-mortar store, because they can get instant reviews, feedback and price comparisons for products on the shelf.
“One in every three mobile (shopping) transactions is done while in a store,” reports Ms de Rycker
But what if companies can turn this to their advantage, and deliver a good mobile shopping experience?
David Sable, global chief executive of advertising firm Young & Rubicam, calls mobile phones “the ultimate combination of digital and real life”.
He says that they will not just change e-commerce as such, they will change retail itself.
Ms De Rycker says that as “mobile integrates social and retail, [it] will drive a whole new customer behaviour”.
Andrew Mason, the chief executive of discount voucher firm Groupon (another of Accel Partner’s many investments), told DLD that his firm was trialling a new real-time deal service, where users can check on their mobile phone whether any deals are on offer right now within a few blocks of their location.
As more and more people join the aways-on, always-connected world, the amount of information available to retailers is going to be of staggering proportions.
Cloud computing makes processing these data fairly easy. But which companies will be able to interpret the data in a meaningful way, and use them as a strategic asset?
Those that do will be the big winners of e-commerce 3.0.
