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Education

StreetSmarts SM

Continuing trends that will

impact your business

By Marc Beauchamp Ask important questions
Bankcard Life The process begins with probing questions such as:

f you've watched any stock market analyst, you've • What new trends do you see developing in our
heard the term "The trend is your friend," meaning industry? In the United States? Globally?
that following and understanding current trends is • How will continuing trends affect your business?
I one of the more profitable investments strategies.
Think about it: the odds of successfully investing are • How will these trends help or harm your current
exponentially improved when you know which way the business model?
market is headed. While we can't always tell where things • What can you do in order to take advantage of these
are headed, we can usually make a good, educated guess. trends?

I believe the coming year will be no different than In answering these questions, I've identified several
years past; accelerated innovation, disruption, change trends you might want to consider when analyzing your
and growth are in the forecast. There is true value in business and where to focus your efforts. A discussion of
identifying and confirming continuing trends and, of each follows.
course, new ones as they emerge.
Ecommerce sales continue to grow rapidly
In addition to payments industry trends, significant Ecommerce sales were already growing at brisk rates but
macro trends affect us all. These include, for example, COVID-19 accelerated the trend. All the big boys have had
unemployment rates; credit defaults; labor participation an omnichannel strategy for years, but with platforms
rates; population growth; tax revenue collection; like Shopify and Big Commerce, smaller merchants can
government stimulus; government budgets; healthcare adopt ecommerce solutions with relative ease.
adoption; retirement ratios; small business growth; and
now vaccine rates, adoption and efficacy. All are critical Business owners realize they need to meet consumers
indicators to consider. where they shop. For some, it's in store; for others it's now
online. With record numbers of consumers having realized
For our purposes, I'd like to look at a few significant how easy it is to shop online, the in-store component may
continuing trends that affect our little slice of the world. never return to prior levels for some commodity-based
By studying these movements, you can more intelligently retailers.
allocate capital, sales, support and organizational
resources for maximum productivity. On top of the demand component, add a more tightly

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