Hello everyone! I decided to blog about e-commerce this week because it is something that I have recently been working on. Although I still have yet to make any sales, I have been educating myself through finance books and podcasts daily and attending e-commerce functions and team meetings. I stumbled on an article online discussing how we can make e-commerce experiences more sustainable, something I'd like to contribute to. Another reason why I am choosing to blog about e-commerce is because it is a huge component in our day-to-day lives, we are all consumers and there will not be a day when we will eventually stop being consumers.

The obvious problem with e-commerce is that people purchase too many extravagances. This would increase the volume of packaging and deliveries to satisfy customer wants and needs. As a result, excess carbon emissions are released into the atmosphere and continue deteriorating the planet's health. One major factor behind consumer purchases is because of discounts and scarcity. People tend to place a higher value on items that have a low volume, increasing demand.

What makes e-commerce sustainable? Sustainable e-commerce refers to green delivery, recyclable packaging, and using sustainable UX for site development so it is energy-efficient. We should push for Kind Commerce (a philosophy where designers encourage consumers to rethink their financial decisions instead of deceiving consumers into purchasing unnecessary products). Deceiving customers can also be hurtful for a business in the event of customer complaints, refunds, manufacturing defects, etc...

Implementing Kind Commerce can help save a company's time from having to deal with return policies, lawsuits, deploying employees, etc... This is also a huge step in saving the environment because helping customers make smart financial decisions would reduce energy consumption, resource consumption, employee expenditure, etc...

This post was heavily inspired from:
Ratkai, A. (2024, July 10) When Friction Is A Good Thing: Designing Sustainable E-Commerce Experiences
Retrieved from: [https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2024/07/designing-sustainable-e-commerce-experiences/]