I found Module 9 to be kind of a frustrating read. While I probably don’t know everything there is to know about ecommerce (especially from the B2B model), a lot of this felt both redundant and kind of lacking. All these company names being listed made a lot of this chapter feel like an advertisement at times.

I thought it was interesting that one of the things that wasn’t listed as a consumer concern is a loss of trust in ecommerce sites. For me personally, Amazon’s changing business model has made me go from buying something there at least once a week (and thus subscribing to Prime for all the free shipping and extra bonuses) to getting something maybe every 3 months and ending my subscription. I’m making more trips to brick and mortar stores than I have in a decade because every site seems to involve a huge markup for kind of suspicious goods. Algorithms keep pushing stuff from drop-shippers whose own companies are disposable, with brand names no one will ever bother to remember. The rise of sites like Temu and Wish and Shein really feels significant, and the way that Amazon and Etsy both changed their models to follow, and the book doesn’t seem to have predicted or mentioned any of it. It just makes it feel like a slog to read through when I know that the chapter is weirdly outdated.

Though, it’s possible that I’m also ahead of the curve on getting sick of buying stuff that doesn't fit or doesn’t work and isn’t even cheaper than the normal stores. For me, I’m spending more time at the mall than I have in years, but I also don’t want to be doing that. I’d really rather buy online, but the trust is gone.

Other than that, I don’t know. I thought this chapter was lacking substance. It just felt like an overview of various shopping websites: information that will become more and more outdated as bubbles burst and models change. It’s not a very future-proof chapter.