Why E-Commerce in Trinidad & Tobago will be booming in 5 Years

Amazon is almost twenty years old and most everyone in T&T knows how to shop online. In the US and around the world online shopping for business and personal is a basic activity and co-exists comfortably and peacefully with offline shopping at the stores and malls and doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Unfortunately, websites in general in Trinidad & Tobago never gained traction even as Trinis started using the internet more and more.

With respect to E-Commerce in Trinidad & Tobago, the legal and financial infrastructure to facilitate online shopping never got off the ground. Both the government and local banks have deliberately ignored the global trend slapping them in the face. Even to this day in 2014, when online shopping accounts for half of all local credit card activity (though not from T&T) there’s not even a mad scramble by any of the powers that be to even pretend to be doing something to catch up.

I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government and the banks whose ongoing laissez-faire attitude stinks to high heaven. The Electronic Transactions Act, 2011 which was passed to to give legal effect to electronic documents, electronic records, electronic signatures and electronic transactions has not yet been fully proclaimed. (See my full article on this coming up).

Believe me, they could if they wanted to because no one is asking them to invent the internet and write the rules from scratch. It’s funny that while we rush the copy everything foreign we still missed this one.

There will come a day though, just as the day came when computers became standard in every home and office, when flat panel monitors became the rule, when mobile phones got smaller, thinner, smarter, when every schoolchild got their laptop. That’s the day you’ll see every bank touting their e-commerce solutions falling over each other to get your business, conveniently forgetting their callous attitude when you needed them.

Be that as it may. I still predict that E-Commerce in Trinidad & Tobago will be BOOMING MARKET in about 5 years, which will leave you very sorry that you didn’t heed my dire warnings that resistance is futile. The reasons are:

1. The financial & legal obstacles will be overcome

Regardless of our frustration about the slow pace of getting things in place, it is inevitable because it is already happening. There is too much money to be made from E-Commerce to keep it on the backburner forever. And if you think it’s already high time we get our act together, just remember that we already have our Act together, i.e. The Electronic Transactions Act (2011), we already have a local payment gateway via local banks, we have more and more online stores than before.

2. Early adopters will have it figured out

In theory the concept is simple but it’s the execution that’s difficult. The moving parts of E-Commerce are few: Online checkout, create sales order, pick, pack and deliver. Getting that into a seamless process in Trinidad & Tobago will only be perfected on the ground which leads to (3) below.

3. 90% of E-Commerce is regular commerce

Isn’t this a mind-blowing revelation? When a customer buys something and pays online, all it does is create an order. It’s no different from the customer calling in the order on the phone or faxing it, or emailing it, or meeting you in person and whispering it in your ear. The one difference is that it’s already paid for.

That means the system is in place and working already to move goods from warehouse to anywhere in the country. Most of it is business to business (B2B) though, from wholesalers to retailers and not directly to individual households. BUT…these courier companies today ARE delivering to households, except that they’re delivering US ordered items to homes across the island.

US online orders shipped to a Miami address and then forwarded to Trinidad still arrives at a warehouse to deliver to Trini homes, so again, proof that the e-commerce process is already in place and working.

4. Market is desperate for local online stores

Trinis are buying online from US sites because they have no local alternatives. Eventually when the stars align and the bugs and kinks worked out there’ll be a nice variety of solid local merchants doing great business in E-Commerce. The early adopters, i.e. those doing it right now in 2014 will be the winners.

5. “Laptop children” will become adults

It’s also a generational thing. Yes we have a savvy generation of Trinis who transitioned nicely from offline to online, who had front row seats to a global paradigm shift that changed the world all in their lifetime.

The ‘Laptop Children’ generation know of no such shift as they are growing up in it knowing nothing else and it will be as natural as breathing. My five year old daughter is so adept on her Kindle it amazes me, fingers furiously going this way and that knowing exactly what she’s doing.

Market size will increase every year (as they turn eighteen) and not only for consumer goods but business goods/services as well.

Conclusion

You may be wondering why I keep on an on about E-Commerce in Trinidad & Tobago, it’s because I really see it exploding like a supernova. Given the innate Trini propensity to do things half-baked with too much focus on the dollar without using their sense, there’ll still be few with the wereithal and resolve to do it right. Hopefully you’re one of them, and if you are, give me a call…