I love great predictions! It's a fascinating way to gain insight from experts into where a market is headed.
However I particularly love predictions that are easy to call out as “right” or “wrong” a year from now. For example…
GREAT PREDICTION: “BigCommerce gets acquired.” — That either happens or it doesn't, with little room for subjectivity.
BORING PREDICTION: “BNPL continues to have an impact on e-commerce.” — Okay, and? Thanks Captain Obvious!
Each year for the past three years, I've curated your submissions alongside published predictions from e-commerce industry leaders to help shed light on where e-commerce is trending in the near future.
Here are a few highlights from this year's 2025 E-commerce Predictions Report:
- “BigCommerce gets acquired.” — that's one of my predictions
- “6 months until there is a $1,000/month ChatGPT plan” – Matt Schlicht, CEO, OctaneAI
- “I envision at least one B2B-focused commerce platform to be acquired in 2025 and one agency merger/acquisition during the same period.” – Jason Greenwood, Founder, Greenwood Consulting
- “SEO in 2025 is going to be unrecognizable.” – Matt Diggity, CEO, Diggity Marketing
- “With the high likelihood of heavy tariffs on imports taking effect in 2025, the consumer base should expect to see price inflation to match.” – Jessica Sunderland, Director, Amazon Business Unit Lead, Kepler
- “Amazon and Walmart will manage more than 50% of their own freight transportation, including last-mile delivery, making them nearly independent from UPS, FedEx, and USPS.“ – Daniel Sodkiewicz, Co-Founder, GeekSeller
- “Agentic Process Automation will overtake Robotic Process Automation in 2025.” – Dharmesh Shah, Founder, HubSpot
- “There will be 1 great AI embarrassment this year that sets adoption back a couple years, but it will be necessary for the space to evolve.” – Jeremy Horowitz, Managing Partner, Because Ventures
- “Blue links will die on [Google] mobile. Expect continued investment in content blocks that aggregate different types of media vs. a title tag and a meta description.” – Joe Baugnet, Owner, Native Oak Digital
- “Google's dominance in search will crumble by 20%.” – Neal Goyal, VP of Strategic Sales, Disco
- “Retailers will increasingly view their stores as integral parts of their fulfillment networks.” – Craig Moore, Solutions Expert, Körber Supply Chain
- “Next year will be the highest number of IPOs since 2021.“ – another prediction of mine
Read the full versions of the predictions above (and around 30+ more predictions) in our 2025 E-Commerce Predictions report.
Got a prediction to submit? There's still time! Send your predictions to [email protected] before Jan 5th, and I'll add yours to this year's roundup.