eCommerce Businesses: More Than Meets the Eye

When people think of eCommerce they think of platforms such as Amazon or Walmart. These are simple websites. You log-in to your account. You find the product you’re looking for, add it to your shopping cart, and then purchase it. It arrives at your home one day and that’s the end of your eCommerce process. However, there’s more to eCommerce than that simple process. There are websites that provide services that you pay for. Services such as Netflix or, as we’re about to discuss in this article, Craftsy. These are websites that, for either a one-time payment or a subscription fee, can provide entertainment or knowledge. For example, Craftsy was a website that would provide video lessons on traditional crafts and hobbies such as sewing, knitting, and woodworking, and sold supplies to help pursue those crafts and hobbies. Craftsy, as with almost everything, can evolve given the right circumstances.

Amid a slew of bids to buy large corporations, Comcast purchased Craftsy. Craftsy could be more than it was. So, Comcast has begun to restructure and rebrand Craftsy into Bluprint. This change is making it so there are more varied lessons. This is also changing the site into a subscription video service, like Netflix. The point of this change is to make it so that more people can visit the site (obviously). However, there is a deeper meaning to this change. Most people have a hobby.

It can be cooking, gaming, reading, gardening, etc. But, a lot of the time, aside from that main hobby, people want to learn more. The point of the rebranding is to be able to expand and reach more people than they were previously able to. That’s why there are dance classes on the platform now. It shows that there’s more to eCommerce than just buying something and having it shipped to you. But, this shows a larger problem that isn’t always mentioned. That is the problem of unidimensionality. One channel, with just one service, just isn’t enough anymore.

eCommerce is, essentially, information technology. Regardless of whether it’s providing entertainment, a product, or a service like Bluprint the user is gaining a piece of information. “How well does this product work?” etc. However, as with all services people need to go to different websites to purchase different services. This is an action that potentially loses a service their potential consumers. There is one key sign that this is a dying effort that only pushes people away and makes them prioritize services.

Bluprint is a great example of this. Look at what Amazon is doing. Amazon has a service for practically anything. Amazon is offering services from product purchasing to video streaming, and school resources. The diversification of eCommerce is its greatest strength. The days of having fractured services are slowly receding. Usually, when Amazon does something other companies follow suit. Comcast is doing that same thing, their way, with the purchase and rebranding of Craftsy. It only makes sense as times goes on that companies try to get a bigger piece of the pie.

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