Where is the e-commerce app ecosystem headed in 2021?

Ashwin RamasamyContributorShare on TwitterAshwin Ramasamy is the co-founder of PipeCandy, an online merchant graph company that discovers and analyzes business and consumer perception metrics about D2C brands and e-commerce companies.More posts by this contributor

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The pandemic-induced growth of e-commerce is, by now, now well documented.

What is happening in the app ecosystem that supports e-commerce? Is it growing? Are we likely to see consolidations or IPOs? Are there superapps that will emerge?

This post is less about conclusions and more about taking you along while I go through the rabbit hole to satiate my own curiosity.

I see all three trends forming:

1. Superapps are likely to emerge. I think companies like Bold Commerce will be among the earliest superapps.
2. There will be consolidations anchored around large SaaS players and roll-ups powered by private equity funds.
3. There are players like Tiny that acquire early-stage firms and let them run independently.

The closest match to the growing e-commerce stack is the marketing automation stack. While there are significant overlaps, it's fascinating to compare and contrast the growth of these ecosystems and what drives consolidation.

The closest match to the growing e-commerce stack is the marketing automation stack. While there are significant overlaps, it's fascinating to compare and contrast the growth of these ecosystems and what drives consolidation.

Between 2015 and 2021, the martech stack grew from 1,800 to 8,000, meaning it roughly doubles every three years.

The explosion of the martech stack is common knowledge and is well documented by Scott Brinker and his famous supergraphics. What's worth noting is that the consolidation we expected to happen is happening, and yet the pace of new companies coming up in the space makes up for the consolidation - and some more.

According to Brinker, the martech landscape grew 5,233% between 2011 and 2020. The fastest-growing category within martech in 2020 is data and governance, which grew in numbers by 25%. The martech app ecosystem more than tripled between 2015 to 2018, powered by the growth of SaaS and e-commerce industries.

I am an avid tracker of this space, but I am also interested in how we can apply martech's evolution to the e-commerce stack. The e-commerce stack also grew 3.5 times between 2017 and 2020. But much of the growth is ahead, and so is the upcoming consolidation.