09 Jul Top 10 Ecommerce Trends to Watch Out For
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Top 10 Ecommerce Trends to Watch Out For
The effectiveness of ecommerce is not in question at all. It has been around since 1995 (albeit rudimentarily) and now it has evolved into a monstrous machine that needs constant feeding. If there’s anything that COVID-19 has taught us is that brick-and-mortar businesses are dead. At least their model for selling products is. If we want sustainability we need to go online.
Ecommerce is here to fill more than one need. It gives the shop owner omnipresence, extended customer service, and many facilities that should never be overlooked. Because your customers can find you by typing in your web’s domain on the navigation search bar, it means that they can find your store from anywhere in the world.
This means that you can forget about neighborly shopping and seeing the same lady’s face day after day. And if you ship internationally, you’re in for a treat! Your shop has become limitless.Same with customer service; you can save up on your employee’s salary and instead invest in a fancy chatbot that will do pretty much the same job, only it doesn’t need food or sleep.
So, it’s not about whether you should have an ecommerce site anymore. If you are the owner of a shop the question has morphed to why don’t you have an ecommerce site by now?!
Ecommerce, like anything that’s in the world wide web, changes, and evolves constantly to adapt to the new trends and customer needs. You must stay up to date with these changes. You don’t want to be missing out on something that could potentially cost you sales, do you?
This year we have a bunch of new trends and we compiled them into a top 10. Keep reading to find out which trends made the cut!
1# voice shopping
Ever since the big guys (Apple, Amazon, Google) introduced their smart speaker devices the world took a pivotal turn.
Not only has the way we surf the web changed by introducing long-tail keywords, as opposed to the short-tail keywords, but it is beginning to change the way people shop online too.
In early 2017, consumers were already testing this new trend called voice shopping, where you speak out your request and your smart home device automatically executes your order.
This trend is expected to rise to 55% by 2020, so it should not be overlooked by ecommerce owners wanting to stay on top of their game.
But is voice shopping for every ecommerce niche? Sadly, we’re only seeing this trend for low-value products like food, homeware products, and budget-friendly electronics. But if your business fits under these categories you should take the leap!
2# delivery of choice? drones!
By 2020 it is expected that we will have at least 7 million drones flying over our houses while collecting and delivering products to our doorsteps. Pretty cool, huh?
So far only big companies like Amazon, Dominos, and UPS have tapped into this new way of delivering your goodies but this trend is expected to escalate fast. And consumers love it.
If you are looking to innovate and you have the means to do so, we strongly advise that you plunge deep into this new trend that will give you a competitive edge while it’s still fairly new!
This new trend has the potential to be huge for small companies that deliver their goods locally. Imagine your customer receiving their product with a drone controlled by you!
Customers will love the innovation and your competitors will be incredibly jealous! What’s more is that you can start with just one drone and see how it works out for you.
If it works well, you can later purchase more and expand. There’s no need to splurge your hard-earned money all in one go!
3# collecting more data
Data collection takes a turn with this new trend which consists of using several technologies and devices (like tracking beacons) to collect more data about consumers and how they shop online.
This new trend is also being applied to physical stores but if we analyse how it’s being implemented in the online world, we see that the goal here is to study the way people shop.
Why? Because by doing so, we can gather more information about patterns (like high-traffic areas, dwell time, and overlooked goods) and decrease the ratio of shopping cart abandonment.
Amazon Go stores are already implementing face recognition techniques to study the way people shop. The aim of this study is being able to provide a shopping experience that doesn’t require check-out. What more can we expect to see in 2020 from this new trend?
Well, be ready to combine online data collection with traditional analytics to achieve the best customer shopping experience possible!
“get ahead of the pack by adopting the best ecommerce trends of 2020.”
4# go green or go home
The “save the planet” movement and greener consumerism habits being led by Millennials is not new and doesn’t surprise anymore. However, they are pushing brands to take this path too!
Why is this trend so strong? Because greener consumerism makes people feel more responsible towards the environment and our planet. They feel fulfilled when purchasing eco-friendly products.
Whether it is through organic products, vegan skincare, or fair-trade organisations there’s a real need for products that are aligned with this vision. Brands must cater to this need or risk losing a whole generation of consumers.
5# Custom online buying experience
Personalised emails have been around for a couple of years now and we all know the importance they have for our customers and how significantly this simple change has made to our CRO.
Now it’s the time for customisation in the shopping experience online. It has been noted that there’s a real need for consumers to have personalised help in their online shopping sessions. How so?
Consumers want to be helped in finding the products they need online and they want to feel like they are the only consumer your brand has.
Ecommerce sites are already taking the dimension of the importance of customisation and are tackling personalisation techniques to enhance the custom-online-buying-experience.
Whether it’s via personalised customer communications, unique discounts, personalised emails, or video-chats one-on-one, customisation is a force to be reckoned with!
6# Augmented reality
One of the major downsides of online shopping is that consumers find it hard to visualise what they want to buy from flat photography.
Sellers have been fighting this problem with photos of the product taken from different angles but we all know it’s not the same feel as holding the item in your hand and testing it out yourself.
This is the issue that Augmented Reality comes to tackle and it is expected that over 120,000 stores will be using AR by 2022. So, it’s a trend that is growing in strength.
Many online stores are already implementing this technique on their sites and consumers are experiencing the difference first-hand. AR allows them to test products like never before.
7# Buying online from your car
Another revolutionary trend that is hitting hard this year is online shopping… inside your car! Commuting takes time and for some of us, it’s a daily activity that doesn’t give anything back.
But what if you could purchase products online while commuting? It would save up some time as well as make your daily trip much more pleasing.
Google maps and Uber are already paving the path for us, using geo-location to showcase ads as the user moves from one place to the other.
This is also a great opportunity for local stores to place their ads on apps that are massively used by the commuters. So, this trend can potentially be highly lucrative for local stores.
We may also see podcasting apps making a move for this trend, using not only personalised ads but CTA opportunities too.
8# Social media is renewed
Do you know somebody who is not on social media? Yup, we don’t either!
Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, or others, everybody in the world is at least on one social media platform.
This opens up a great opportunity for online shopping and the big guys like Facebook and Instagram are already taking advantage of it.
Facebook started with the “buy” button, whereas Instagram is introducing the Checkout feature. This trend will keep growing and that other platforms are going to jump on it.
Along this line is TikTok, which is stomping the playground hard and fast. TikTok is testing a feature that will allow adding shoppable links in videos and profiles.
But, let us not forget Shopify which allows online stores to link with their social media sites so that their followers can shop their products without leaving the platform.
Needless to say, Social Media is a great place to sell online and every brand should at least have one profile to showcase their products and services.
9# Progressive web applications
Progressive web apps or PWA are a new trend that we can see displayed in full-spectrum by AliExpress, and this site professed to have grown thrice as fast as a normal ecommerce site using PWA.
How does PWA work?
The key here is providing a consumer experience on-the-go that is smooth and hassle-free. That is what consumers want. When you use PWA it ensures the best web UX across all mobile phones.
10# The power of omnipresence
It’s better to send one message at the right time through the right channel than sending a hundred that are unwanted and untimely. That’s the role of omnipresence.
It means knowing your consumers enough to be able to send them the right message at the right time. When done right, it will multiply your chances of conversion.
Think for example of a special discount for a restaurant. It could be sent through a push notification right before dinner time.
conclusion
Ecommerce is evolving and, to survive, we need to adapt. By incorporating some of these trends you will be ensuring your chances of sustainability as well as increasing your CRO.
So, what are you waiting for? It’s your turn now!