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Earlier this month at Spryker EXCITE, Alexander Graf presented a session on “Navigating the Future of E-commerce” (and a following fireside chat with Oliver Kraft, Tim Hagemann and Alessio Keller - recording available here).

Some interesting questions were asked:

  • Does Price Win or Not?
  • To Copy or Cooperate?
  • Sell Products or Sell Reach?

All leading to the overall question: is the classic model of value creation in commerce still valid today?

Primary and Secondary Activities of Michael Porter's Value Chain

Global commerce is shifting fast, and a lot of traditional business models look shaky because of it. If you’re running a commerce company, the things that used to guarantee retail success aren’t holding up the way they used to. So let’s look at why the old ways of creating value are becoming obsolete, and why innovation is now a matter of survival.

A) The end of operations as we know it

Remember when getting your supply chain right was the key to winning? Those days are fading fast.

Businesses are increasingly challenged to adapt to technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, which are reshaping traditional workflows and operations [1][5].

Companies like TEMU and SHEIN have rewritten the rulebook, growing fast by prioritizing speed and adaptability over operational perfection. TEMU went from launch to 100 million active users in the US in just six months, and expanded into 48 countries while keeping that growth going. The shift is pretty clear: agility beats efficiency in today’s market.

TEMU's rapid growth and expansion

B) The price & sustainability paradox

The old wisdom said competitive pricing was the path to market dominance. SHEIN complicates that. They offer rock-bottom prices, sure, but their growth has outpaced established giants like Zalando and Zara, and the real edge isn’t the low prices (plenty of competitors have those too), it’s how fast they go from design to market. So price still matters, but it’s no longer the only thing that decides who wins. The new currency is speed-to-market and trend alignment, which pushes traditional retailers to rethink how they do product development and pricing.

Growth comparison between SHEIN and Zalando

Source: excitingcommerce.de / April 2024

There’s a counter trend though: consumers care more about corporate responsibility, which pushes businesses toward sustainability, diversity, and inclusivity. 70% of consumers say they’re willing to pay a premium for ethically sourced and sustainable products, and 66% expect brands to understand their needs and preferences [3].

That move from purely profit-driven to socially responsible is becoming hard to ignore, because consumers increasingly prefer companies that reflect their values [2]. So companies will need to build sustainability into their core strategy, with eco-friendly practices and circular economy models, to stay competitive [1].

So research shows consumers making sustainable choices, but the (SHEIN/TEMU) numbers show us that price and fast turnaround are still winning… On which strategy will you place your bets?

RIP ❌ Inbound Logistics & RIP ❌ Classic Operations

C) Marketing: from cost center to profit engine

Treating marketing as a necessary expense is outdated. Hyper-personalization, driven by real-time data and AI, lets businesses serve marketing and product recommendations based on individual consumer behavior, which helps with choice overload and keeps customers happier [8][9].

Amazon turned its marketing division into a revenue machine, and that should be a wake-up call for the industry. Its advertising revenues have grown to rival the core retail business, so a cost center became a profit engine. That kind of shift means commerce companies have to seriously rethink how they use their marketing.

Amazon Marketing Revenues vs Expenses

D) The attention economy

In the new commerce world, attention is the most valuable thing you can have. Being able to aggregate and monetize user attention has become a primary source of value, which is why the platforms doing well aren’t just good at selling products, they’re good at capturing and keeping user engagement across multiple channels. More than 60% of consumers now do “phygital” shopping, mixing physical and digital environments [4]. That demand for convenience means businesses have to offer connected, coherent shopping across platforms.

So the takeaway is pretty clear: commerce companies have to go from being product sellers to attention brokers, or risk becoming irrelevant.

RIP ❌ Classic Marketing & Sales

E) The workforce crisis

The global workforce crisis adds another complication. Automation handles repetitive tasks, but it also creates new roles focused on managing and improving those automated systems. So now you need workers skilled in data analysis, AI programming, and system management [5][6]. That means rethinking HR strategy around continuous learning and skill development to stay competitive.

Global Workforce Crisis

No more workforce? RIP ❌ Classic Outbound Logistics & RIP ❌ Classic Services

The above trends lead to a complete breakdown of the primary activities of the classic model:

Remember how commerce created value?

😱

The Path Forward: Commerce 3.0

To survive in this new era, commerce companies need a very different model of value creation. As Alex mentioned in his talk, the future belongs to those who can master:

  • Offer aggregation: curating a diverse, fast-moving product mix that keeps up with consumer trends.
  • Attention flywheel: building platforms that sell products and capture and monetize user attention.
  • User insights: using data to understand and predict consumer behavior at a level we haven’t seen before.
  • Seller/buyer matchmaking: building ecosystems that connect supply with demand efficiently.
New Value Creation: Commerce 3.0

The market is still in a high-growth stage, driven by fast technological innovation and rising demand across sectors [7]. Companies are trying new strategies, like digitizing supply chain functions and getting human and automated systems to work together, to deal with talent scarcity and turnover [7].

But is it enough?

Companies that hang on to outdated models of value creation risk becoming obsolete. The fast rise of new players and the reinvention of established giants shows that no company is too big to fail, or too small to disrupt.

Innovation isn’t a luxury or a side project anymore, it’s how you survive in the new commerce world. So the question isn’t whether you should innovate, but how quickly you can change your whole business model to thrive.

The collapse of traditional commerce models isn’t a distant threat: it’s happening now. Will your company be a casualty of it, or will you turn the volatility into value? The choice is yours, but the clock is ticking.

Commerce 3.0 - The future of commerce

The long version of Alex’ keynote will be published as a book in a few weeks.

Sources: