E-commerce is changing, and as always happens in the business world, the first comes first, the better the accommodation. Everything evolves plants, animals, pokémon, technology, digital business. And despite what many believe, the strongest does not always survive. Indeed, the rule is clear: the fittest survives the change.
This is why, with the evolution of technology, we must constantly review and adapt our models on the pain of extinction. In this article, we will try to analyze the changes taking place in the world of digital commerce, trying to predict the trends with which to deal here in the short term.
A Few Considerations On The Online Shop Market
In 2020, more than 2 billion people bought online. Covid will likely give a further boost to the growth of this number. However, if the prospects in the pool of users who connect to the network everyday increase, it is also true that competitors will certainly not be idle, and the sector’s competitiveness will also grow exponentially.
In this scenario, every missed opportunity is a gift to your competitors. Furthermore, every early positioning represents a not insignificant advantage. So let’s see which trends can be explored and exploited in 2021.
Emerging Trends For E-Commerce
Old and new technologies land in e-commerce:
Voice Assistants
Voice search through various devices such as Alexa or Google Home is growing rapidly. It is estimated that 60% of virtual assistant owners have made purchases with voice commands. Due to the immense popularity of this technology, many brands are expected to redesign their websites to support voice search capabilities by 2022.
The advantages of this technology:
- High level of interaction
- Ability to contextualize search keywords
- Conversational interaction is more involved.
- Improved user experience
- The catchment area and the market are still not saturated.
The Massive Use Of Chatbots
According to some marketing agencies, 80% of businesses will use chatbots by 2022. Integrating artificial intelligence into your sales channels is a powerful tool to guide customers on their customer journey while providing exceptional customer care and retargeting tools.
Here’s what chatbots can do for your e-commerce:
- Engage and assist customers in the purchase process on the same landing page.
- Please provide the information the user needs in real-time (around 94% of online shoppers base their purchasing decisions on product information)
- Reduce the bounce rate by capturing the attention of the most elusive users.
- Reduce costs and improve customer care with 24/7 digital assistance.
- Collect data on your customers’ buying habits to optimize your campaigns
The Dawn Of Social Commerce
The impact of social media on e-commerce marketing strategies has been indisputable for decades. Metrics such as engagement, social sharing, sentiment are increasingly important for the success of a marketing campaign. Popular platforms like Instagram, Facebook are perfect places thanks to the strong visual component, which pushes users to discover new products and new shopping channels.
Social commerce is currently rising due to the quick and easy shopping experience (drastic reduction in “friction”). To make the most of this marketing practice, it is necessary to strengthen:
- Brand recognition
- Visual content.
- Monitoring of user actions on social networks (trends, purchasing habits, interests)
- Configure your online purchase channels from a mobile-first perspective.
- Set up communication-based on social content (copy, languages, media)
- Interact quickly, in real-time, with the users of your audience.
Social platforms have also recently introduced the possibility for brands to sell directly from their pages/accounts. For example, users can buy directly from Instagram with Instagram Checkout. Ads with a high degree of interactivity, available for the major social networks, complete this picture that sees social commerce as a fundamental component of the business in the coming years.
AR & VR To Enhance The Shopping Experience
Although not exactly cheap, AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) technologies have amply demonstrated their potential in the field of e-commerce. Similar to the case of social commerce, these technologies also offer an improved user experience. Still, instead of simply reducing friction, they offer the possibility of increasing user confidence by providing them with a simulation of the product they are going to buy.
Another important aspect in this context is the playful one. The ability to view or manipulate digital objects in real contexts arouses the imagination and curiosity of users. One hundred million users will use augmented reality online and in-store within the current decade. The big brands have already equipped themselves with these technologies for online sales. Still, the lowering of software and tools costs is also opening this possibility to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Mobile Shopping And Payments
The migration of the ways of using online content is now almost complete. There are now 2 billion users who routinely use smartphones as their preferred navigation device (and therefore also for online purchases). Again, the user experience is driving this change, and where users go, our business absolutely must go.Improving the experience, in this case, goes beyond the simple paradigm of mobile-first.
The major digital platforms have integrated very convenient one-click payment systems for smartphone purchases. An example above all is the Google Pay function, but other giants of online commerce have not kept their solutions waiting, such as Amazon Pay. Users who choose these payments have, on the one hand, the convenience of doing everything with a “tap” on the device, often using fingerprint reading or facial recognition as an authentication method.
On the other hand, they have deep confidence in the security of transactions made through these platforms. Integrating these Pay Methods on your e-commerce helps break down the barriers between mobile users and the much-desired checkout.