Every year Andrew Youderian of EcommerceFuel surveys hundreds of store owners to better understand the trends in the ecommerce industry.

Today Andrew and I review the report of last year's survey and make predictions for the future of ecommerce based on this data.

If you're also an ecommerce store owner, we'd like to invite you to help us better understand the ecommerce landscape by answering next year's survey.

Why participate?

Andrew is shamelessly bribing you and me to participate in the survey--called State of the Merchant--by giving one lucky participant a roundtrip plane ticket to anywhere in the world. Last year's winner used his ticket for an epic 15 day, 6 country trip to Europe.

More importantly though, you'll be participating in a research that's not done anywhere else. Your participation will give us a much clearer insight into what really goes on in the ecommerce jungle.

Predictions for the future

Below are predictions, some pretty bold, about the future of ecommerce based on this year's State of the Merchant data:

• Amazon will lose its spot as the number 1 go-to place for online shopping
• Facebook ads will get more expensive as more and more users leave the platform
• Conversion rate for dropshipping will decrease
• UPS and FedEx will offer Sunday deliveries for Amazon
• Amazon will launch their own delivery service to rival UPS and FedEx
• There will be a major legislation about sales tax

Full Report

You can view the full report in the infographic below.

Click here to participate in next year's State of the Merchant Survey.

Thanks for listening to this episode! Until the next one, happy selling.