Two conventionally offline industries that are finally being disrupted by the e-commerce revolution

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Right from fashion, home decor to health products, e-commerce has had a major impact on almost every industry that comes to mind, over the years. However, there are some markets that took their time, but have finally caught up full-throttle with the e-commerce boom. Years after looking into untapped profit potential, big corporations as well as start-ups in these industries have finally started investing into e-commerce initiatives, in all kinds of ways.

Music industry

It’s no news that digital technology has completely transformed the music industry today. The millennials who have witnessed the era when bookstores used to have big shelves for retail CDs can testify to this change. Nowadays, people either listen to music through online streaming services or download their favourite tracks as MP3s, rather than purchasing physical CDs. 

However, the way this $ 60 billion worldwide music industry has been disrupted digitally doesn’t stop with these two mediums alone. Of late, e-commerce has impacted the music retail industry in a big manner and in all sorts of ways. Nowadays we have services like ‘TopSpin’ and ‘Music Glue’ that enable artists to indulge in ‘direct-to-fan’ marketing, allowing them to sell merchandise, tickets and music directly to their fans, through centralised online marketplaces.

Such new avenues have brought about a major shift in the music industry. Music marketing has transformed completely, with more capital freely flowing into the pockets of people who are positioning themselves as business people cum musicians these days. Making the most of online technologies, these people have managed to cut-out middlemen and are reaping higher profits for themselves. Not to forget the reduced costs for their fans too.

Online Casino Industry

The immense success they have achieved online is finally reshaping them in a big way and causing their complete move from brick-and-mortar to online environments. One industry that is worth mentioning here is the gambling industry that although moved online couple of decades ago, is finally realising its full potential only now. In fact, whilst in the beginning most of the online casinos were leading land-based casino brands, nowadays the situation is different, with many new casinos being launched online every year. And this growth is reflected in the numbers, as the revenue for this industry keeps increasing year on year.

Currently, the online gambling industry is well on its way to becoming a $60 billion industry.

Once again, most of the attribution to this growth is due to the internet, and more importantly, smartphones. This is not to say that land-based casinos are not seeing a growth as well, however, with the various technologies available today, online casinos have also been able to deliver an online experience that is very close to the real one thanks to live casinos, whereby players get the chance to enjoy the best of both worlds – a real-time experience with a live dealer, from the comfort of their home.

Grocery industry

Despite the fact that grocery delivery services like Fresh Direct have been in existence for many years, it is only lately that the $ 600 billion worth F&B industry is finally getting disrupted by e-commerce. Back in 2015, no more than 1% of all food and beverage sales used to take place online. But it only took 2 more years for gigantic corporations like Amazon and many small tech start-ups to start investing heavily into grocery e-commerce infrastructure. The shift is finally driving phenomenal annual growth in the online grocery sales today, with the industry reaching a whopping $ 18 billion in the year 2018, and expected to reach $100 Billion in 2025.

And who seems to be at the forefront of all this? None other than the trillion dollar company Amazon – that’s right, last year Amazon became the second U.S. public company to cross the $1 trillion valuation threshold and so, it is not hard to believe that this company is estimated to be the current and future leader in online grocery.





 

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