Over the years, Agam Berry has experienced the good and the bad of running a company. As the co-founder of Quantified Commerce, he has spent some sleepless nights getting work done to make everything come together.
All that hard work has paid off, as Quantified Commerce is currently a huge success. We had a chance to ask him a few questions about being an entrepreneur, and how the Internet can be used as a huge advantage for different types of businesses.
You launched your company, Quantified Commerce, over 13 years ago. Do you remember how e-commerce was like in those days?
It definitely was different in a lot of ways. The websites did not move as quickly, and it wasn’t possible to put as much information on websites as well. There were still quite a few people relying on dial-up at the time, so our website had to be light enough for people to still enjoy it.
It was also a little more difficult to get those impulse purchases because credit card information was not saved on all devices like today. It was harder in general to get that sale, mostly due to the general public not having the same amount of familiarity with e-commerce.
Do you think it has become too easy to purchase things online?
As long as there are security features built-in, I don’t see a problem with it. For example, when making a purchase using saved login information, a phone might do a quick authentication check. This takes just a second or two, but it helps to fight against fraud.
How difficult is it for your business to deal with shoppers all around the globe?
It’s a challenge to start an international business, but it also is a great opportunity to grow faster than average. The biggest challenge is having customer support available in different languages. No one is going to purchase a product if they can’t talk to someone in a language they are familiar with.
Our goal is to always have the best and most versatile customer service. This builds relationships that people don’t forget when it comes time to shopping later on as well.
What’s one tip you would give young entrepreneurs building out a new website, trying to earn trust with shoppers?
Keep things simple early on. Entrepreneurs seem to want to do everything in the beginning, but websites can become too cluttered if that is the case. As long as it is fast and secure, most don’t care about much else.
What’s the next big change in e-commerce in your opinion?
Bitcoin seems to be really getting close to becoming mainstream. Cryptocurrency in general can be very beneficial when it comes to making easy transactions online. As more and more major companies embrace it, it is only going to become more prevalent on websites. I don’t expect anything crazy to happen in the next few months, but in the next five years, we could see a drastic shift.
