Digital Marketing AI | eCommerce Apocalypse & The End of Small Business
The digital marketing AI revolution is coming and it’s one that every small business in the world must look at and fear! If you have a small business what does this mean for you and what can you do?
I grew up in a small town outside of Chicago called Sandwich. Yes, that’s right, Sandwich. Sandwich was a small town where everyone knew everyone. Farms blanketed the town all around and it’s the place where the drivers’ education car drove through a patch of pig shit. The kid driving the car quickly assumed the nickname “Pigshit Aichele“. You can imagine how bad the car smelled. Well, the digital marketing and eCommerce road for middle America and small business is heading in the same direction!
The history of business is cyclical and always moving to the newest technology of the times.
History of Commerce in America
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- Gold Rush
- 1800’s – Small businesses open to support the gold rush
- Late 1800’s – Big Business organizes
- 1980’s Mom and Pop businesses slowly go out of business (think Walmart)
- 1995 – The internet revolution
- 2010 – Online retailers open, mom and pops!
- Big Business opens up online / Amazon
- Digital marketing AI adopted by big business online
- 2020 Small online businesses slowly die
- Block Chain Technology Emerges
- Governments around the world crumble as banks no longer harbor money
- World Economies open freely
- Small business moves into smaller emerging economies
- Big Business follows into emerging economies
The story playing out in every scenario is that small business is the first mover in any economy, with big businesses slower to move. Big business is always bloated and slowed by bureaucracy. Once big business catches up, they destroy the small businesses. You’re seeing this with Amazon as we speak,
So what do small businesses do in every scenario? Adapt! Overcome the change of times and survive. It’s what us Americans do. It’s what we’ve always done. With a world economy, come other challenges to be foreseen, in digital commerce, but one thing is for sure. It’s going to be wild!
What is Digital Marketing AI?
At this point, you may be asking yourself, “What the hell is digital marketing AI“? Great question! Digital marketing is what we do here at Brandfluencer, but we’re limited to our human ability to assess and mobilize marketing activities based upon our time and activity as humans. Digital marketing artificial intelligence doesn’t have these limitations. It’s making marketing decisions at the speed of computer computations based upon quantitative data and then implementing them automatically. Digital marketing decisions in small businesses are often flawed by human thoughts and feelings. They don’t even have data to make an educated decision, to begin with, let alone AI making a smart choice for them. You can spot a bad decision a mile away with these very words, “I feel that…”
Why Will Small Business Die?
If you are a small business (100K – 20 million) in revenue in online sales and are not using a business analyst in your digital marketing, you are operating your business based on feelings. If the wind blows one way, you follow it. Take, for instance, Amazon. They knew that humans love the expedient delivery of products, so they built a business around delivering products fast. They undercut the competition until they were a household name. Now, they command the business winds. They knew what the data was telling them. To do this, Amazon had to warehouse the products they were selling and deliver them faster than the competition (eBay). Amazon listened to the data and its customers and they won. If they had made decisions based on their feelings, they would have reverted back to doing business the way eBay does (not warehousing products).
Amazon will crush every small business because of these 3 things:
- Every small business is selling through them to survive
- Amazon can deliver faster than anyone
- Amazon will deploy eCommerce AI & digital marketing AI
Wal-Mart once swallowed up all the small businesses in small-town American, and the next wave is coming with Amazon. You may not know anyone that works at Amazon, but you soon will!
Small Business Hope?
There must be a way to combat big business right? At this point, I hesitate to think that it’s possible. In this country, we once had unions. Unions protected the blue-collar man from big business and industry from poor wages. Now, if there’s an eCommerce union, there’s a chance. Every small business would need to become a member and then organize to fight against big business. There are other emerging companies that are poised to fight Amazon, but they don’t represent small businesses.
Call it the eCommerce Apocalypse if you want, but what’s coming to small businesses, isn’t going to be pretty. I hope I’m wrong! What are your thoughts on the “eCommerce Apocalypse”?
If your small business has questions or needs answers about digital marketing, leave a comment below or message us on Twitter or Facebook! #AskBrandfluencer