RESULTS OF FORCED «UPGRADE» OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of e-commerce, which has become an integral part of the global retail system over the past five years. Challenges looming for this area of business have been identified, as consumers have become more cautious in their spending due to inflation, the effects of the war in Ukraine, supply chain disruptions and a general sense of uncertainty. It is noted that business structures, trying to survive in the existing conditions, transform into new business forms and look for new forms of product promotion. The work shows that in practice these actions are not always effective. The «upgrade» of the Prom.ua trading platform was studied in detail – the innovative ProSale catalog, which is a tool for displaying and promoting goods on Prom and whose main goal is to attract buyers and increase sales. Prom's developers are shown to have required all but industrial customers to use the CPA Model, which assumes a single sales payout rate that is the same for all products in a given category. And most importantly, the client lost influence over the frequency and priority of issuing their goods in the ProSale Catalog. According to the data of the authors' own research, it was established that the number of customers registered on the marketplace after the forced «upgrade» decreased by 6% only in June-July. Of course, this happened under the combined influence of various factors, but the study showed that changes in the promotion of goods on Prom have a significant impact on this, and customers selling on Prom experienced a sharp decrease in the number of impressions (issues in categories) in the ProSale Catalog. The situation is shown when the seller got into a circle from which it is very difficult to get out. An explanation has been provided as to why: it is the store rating that now plays an important role in issuing ProSale Catalog products for both new sellers and «advanced» sellers on the platform. Recommendations for the Prom marketplace have been developed: bring back CPS advertising and thereby create healthy competition between sellers on the platform. Expected: value for the platform – increase in profit due to the purchase of accommodation packages, increase in spending among users on advertising services; value for the seller – increased sales and a corresponding increase in profit; value for buyers – a reduction in the prices of goods and, accordingly, the opportunity to make a larger number of purchases.