Porter Erisman on the Future of e-commerce

Porter Erisman‘s new book Six Billion Shoppers tackles e-commerce in the developing world and provides insights on shortcomings and opportunities for the future.

Porter takes his wisdom from his years working at Alibaba and combines it with views from a tour/survey of digital retailers from Asia, Latin America and Africa to come up with a broader perspective on what it means to win at the “global e-commerce boom”. The book describes Porter’s insights from meeting with industry leaders and key executives, details trends and predictions, discusses challenges in providing services to a diverse population, and so much more.

Here is a quick look at what Mike Cormack has to say in his book review, featured in the SCMP:

Throughout Six Billion Shoppers , in fact, Erisman’s knowledge of and passion for the industry is clear, and he wants e-commerce to succeed. He argues that trust is the basis of commerce and points out what digital companies must implement to ensure its advance­ment, from escrow payment systems to online chatting between buyers and sellers (prohibited by eBay and Amazon).

E-commerce’s success in emerging regions, Erisman argues, is partly due to the fact that it does not impair traditional retail, as it does in mature markets. Rather, by giving more people access to the global economic ecosystem, it furthers trade not only in cities, but also in the most isolated of villages. Erisman relates how a man making leather jackets in India started to sell them online, and then saw his sales increase from US$230 to US$23,000 a month.