the experience further. Amazon is more than just a retail juggernaut. It’s becoming the shopper’s main source for information. In fact, Amazon – not Google – is the leading tool mobile consumers use to compare prices, especially when they are “showrooming” (viewing a product in store while looking for a better deal online). A showrooming study has found shoppers opting for Amazon twice as often as Google. Marketers and sellers need to grapple with the implications of that. Why ecommerce, anyway? Digitally enabled sales now account for about 8 per cent of all US retail sales, more than 14 per cent of UK sales, and about 12 per cent of Chinese sales. Those numbers are expected to grow in all three markets, as fast as nearly 20 per cent year-over-year in China. It has become simply unarguable that most retailers must do business in both the physical and digital worlds. Giving consumers different experiences in each is hardly to be recommended. They want a seamless experience. In fact, some 80 per cent of shoppers have said they are more likely to become loyal customers of a seamless cross-channel experience. So the question is: if the digital and physical worlds are merged (which they are) and the consumer will reward a seamless union between them (which she will), why are we dividing up the world into ecommerce, mcommerce and traditional retail? “…commerce is where you are at any given moment when you decide to search, shop, compare or buy.” It does not make sense. I’m a strong advocate of kicking the “e” in ecommerce into the dustbin of lost labels. Commerce is no longer sharply delineated in time or space – you’re not in one mode while you are at home and another while getting to work, and in yet a third when you finally walk into a store, flip on your computer or turn on your phone (as if it’s ever off anyway). No, commerce is where you are at any given moment when you decide to search, shop, compare, or buy. Commerce is everywhere, all the time. It is continuous.