Al Gore Tells Internet Retailers To Think Globally To Reach World's Middle Class

Al Gore is not only a former presidential hopeful, he's a director at Apple and a senior adviser to Google and so someone who's opinion in the field of ecommerce counts for something. He graced the stage yesterday at Chicago's Internet Retailer Conference with an interesting statistic.

At present 2 billion of the 7 billion people on the planet belong to the global middle class and that is expected to double in the next 10 years to 4 billion. The world is currently witnessing the biggest reduction in poverty in history - and that brings economic opportunity for those with a global mindset, he said.

'The one piece of advice maybe some of you have not come to grips with yet is whatever business you are in you need to think global,' he told the predominantly American audience. 'Your customers are global, your competitors are global. The internet connects billions of people and smart devices. It's unbelievable how information flows.'

He pointed out that volumes passing through China's ecommerce giant Alibaba surpassed the combined gross merchandise volumes of eBay and Amazon combined in the fourth quarter. But he said the world was now 'leapfrogging' the desk top and going straight to mobile technology devices. 

However, he added: 'You in your industry ought to feel absolutely great. Even in the midst of economic stress and a weak recovery, you are growing more than 15 per cent year on year.'

He said the opportunities are 'boundless' for those that keeping innovating and changing. 'Metcalfe's Law says the value of any network increases by the square of the number of people connected to it. So whatever you calculate the value of being connected to it, it doesn't just double in value, it increases by the square of the number of people connected to it,' he said.