Convergence is a term you might remember from geometry and is when lines come together to a single point. That convergence in marketing means that all the lines meet at the customer and infers that the lines between how one displays a product, promotes it or gets it to the customer are not divisions the customer obsesses about.. The customer just wants what they want. This e$-$commerce text, though, treats e$-$commerce as distinct and distinguishes it from brick$-$and$-$mortar commerce, social commerce, etc. While customers recognize differences, their perspective is straightforward: What is optimal for them as a customer?

They don$$t concern themselves with how businesses manage their businesses.

The truth is that there is one consumer, even though different marketing and distribution models converge to create and improve the consumer experience. While no model can fully convey the complexities of the modern free market economy, it should still be noted that free markets, this marvellous but imperfect structure fueled by the human desire for profit that adapts to serve individual consumers' needs most profitably, provide the best economic growth model for society.

A free market can be compared to democracy. Indeed, it is a flawed and awkward system. However, the collective will and the individual wills of millions of consumers lead to greater prosperity than when a supposedly moral elite usurps decisions about product allocation. Indeed, communism, when attempted, left the $19$th century full of mass graves, oppression, suffering, and poverty.

So convergence happens when distribution methods are profitably adapted to serve the consumer's needs best.

This might mean a brand has brick$-$and$-$mortar stores to support and reinforce its online brand. It also means a situation in which e$-$commerce, mobile commerce and brick$-$and$-$mortar could converge, bringing elements of distribution and consumer inaction models together. Lim et al$.,$ writing in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services in a Digital News Asia survey, reported that around $90\%$ of consumers prefer using different channels to shop online. $($Lim$,2022,3-4)$

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What does the essay say about the free markets?

Question $40$ options:

That the individual profit seeking motives of everyone works together to effectively allocate resources

That state control of the means of the production is ideal

Very few customers want a mix of distribution options

That mobile technology will define the future of e$-$commerce

All the answers are correct