<\/p>\n
For years EcomFuel has surveyed its community of ecommerce merchants about their growth, margins, tactics, and more. The company released this year\u2019s findings last week.<\/p>\n
Founder Andrew Youderian recaps the report in this episode, addressing the state of ecommerce among 300 participating businesses.<\/p>\n
Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
Eric Bandholz:<\/strong> Give us a rundown of what you do.<\/p>\n Andrew Youderian:<\/strong> I run a company and community called eComFuel. My background is in starting and operating ecommerce businesses. We have an online message board, online forum, events, reviews, and research.<\/p>\n Our \u201c2026 Ecommerce Trends Report<\/a>\u201d is based on responses from 300 store owners \u2014 mostly seven, eight, and nine-figure brands \u2014 who answered 50 questions.<\/p>\n We ask about traffic, margins, Amazon, warehousing, AI, business models, tariffs, and more. We don\u2019t track the number of merchants who have exited the industry. People join and leave our community every month for various reasons. When asked, some say they\u2019re closing their business. It peaked 12 to 18 months ago. I\u2019m a little more optimistic about ecommerce for the next couple of years.<\/p>\n Going forward, successful brands will likely be smaller with loyal customers. They will make interesting products. They won\u2019t grow as fast, but they\u2019ll be much stickier and more durable in the long term.<\/p>\n The number of respondents in our report who manufacture products increased by 50% over the past three years. All other models were either flat or down. Respondents who resell products are largely unchanged. Private label<\/a> sellers were down significantly. Drop shipping<\/a> was down 50%. Merchants are adjusting to a new reality.<\/p>\n In 2017, about 20% of respondents\u2019 total revenue came from Amazon<\/a>. It subsequently spiked to about 28%. It\u2019s now back to 20%, despite 63% selling on that marketplace.<\/p>\n I respect how Amazon built out its infrastructure for the long term. They\u2019re not going anywhere, but the types of products they sell will likely be either very low-end or very high-end. They\u2019ve lost the middle tier.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> Have you tracked AI\u2019s financial impact?<\/p>\n Youderian:<\/strong> For the trends report, we asked, \u201cHave you meaningfully incorporated AI into your business?\u201d Seventy-two percent of respondents said yes. The top four use cases were, in order, copywriting, images<\/a>, analytics, and coding.<\/p>\n Certainly some merchants have dialed in AI and are seeing strong benefits. But most are still in the investment stage.<\/p>\n For example, EcomFuel has heavily invested in AI over the last year. We\u2019ve built proprietary AI tools. But we\u2019ve not seen great ROI from those efforts. That seems to be what\u2019s happening for most ecommerce companies.<\/p>\n One of the most surprising findings in this year\u2019s survey was the ages of AI adopters<\/a>. Roughly 90% of respondents under 30 are using AI. But folks in their 30s are investing less than those in the 40- to 54-year-old cohort. Anecdotally, we\u2019re seeing merchants build impressive in-house operational tools, and most are 40 or older.<\/p>\n Bandholz:<\/strong> Where can people join your community or reach out?<\/p>\n Youderian: <\/strong>Our site is eCommerceFuel.com<\/a>. I\u2019m on LinkedIn<\/a> and X<\/a>. I also host \u201cThe eComFuel Podcast<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n