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Market “friction” refers to the time, energy, effort and know‐how required to buy something. If it's difficult to buy something because it's far away, poorly understood or time‐consuming, the market is slowing down due to friction.

If you can reduce that friction, you'll attract a lot of customers who will call it a convenience.

When you find ways to simplify and speed up the process of buying from you, it creates a market imbalance. People buy from you because it's much easier than going elsewhere. Since the dot.com era really kicked off in 1999, we've seen many successful businesses build up because they took a traditional business into the digital world. They reduced friction or, put another way, increased convenience.

Amazon almost dealt a death blow to traditional bookstores because it made it a lot easier to buy a book. Each book is exactly the same if you buy it in a store or online but the ease and simplicity of Amazon makes it the default option. Netflix obliterated video rental stores with their approach to getting movies into your home with less hassle.

Convenience or less friction occurs in three ways:

 Better distribution – When a business makes something available to its buyers with less energy, effort or time required.

 Better market information – As more information is made available, market leaders give way to market followers. This also occurs when a buyer doesn't need to research options as much.

 Automation – When things happen faster or on autopilot. This could be new machinery or systems online or offline.