Future e-commerce trends
We’ve seen e-commerce turn almost every single industry upside down. So what does his future look like? In short, it can take a lot. We see how e-commerce changes industries and creates completely new ones. Below are just a few of the trends that can be expected for e-commerce over the next few years.
personalization
As mentioned earlier, personalization is key to the future of e-commerce. The online shopping experience is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Knowing a customer’s habits is beneficial to both the seller and the buyer. Online retailers increase profits and customer loyalty, while customers have the advantage of being connected to products they love and sometimes didn’t even know they wanted. Online retailers increase customer loyalty by showing them media, content, and personalized recommendations based on their purchase history and demographics. Based on the data, the same website could serve ads for baby supplies for a new mom and laptop deals for a college student. Optimizing the shopping experience helps connect customers more quickly with the products they want, strengthens consumer confidence and ultimately ensures an optimized sales process.
Mobile first
Thanks to mobile devices, e-commerce has experienced an enormous boom in recent years. Thanks to smartphones and tablets, online ordering doesn’t have to stop when you leave your desktop or home. In fact, 65% of all ecommerce traffic (and 53% of all sales) is handled by a mobile device, and that number is expected to keep growing. Optimizing an online platform for mobile-first users will help ensure that customers are satisfied, shopping baskets are full and profits rise. We have seen a huge surge in the use of mobile wallets as powerful e-commerce tools. These wallets, like Apple Pay, offer the ultimate in convenience for shoppers who don’t want to enter their credit information every time they make a purchase. Mobile-first design, sales funnels and wallets are a big part of the future success of any e-commerce store.
Omni-channel experiences
Omnichannel e-commerce ensures that customers have a seamless shopping experience, regardless of whether the customer is shopping by phone, tablet, computer, on the phone or even in person. Omni-channel experiences include personalization to provide the customer with the highest level of purchase satisfaction.
An example of an omni-channel shopping experience would be a customer looking at a new pair of running shoes. You could have bought some running shorts beforehand, which led the website to suggest the shoes that most people buy with these shorts. You could have visited different websites to buy shoes on your iPad and then got ads for those very same websites by searching your phone. The customer could even call a customer service representative to ask questions about the shoes. The sales rep could get information about previous purchases and use recent shoe purchases to inform the next one. The seamless experiences of omni-channel e-commerce will help increase customer loyalty and brand awareness.
Content marketing / social media strategy
Content marketing and social media strategies play and will play an important role in e-commerce strategies. E-commerce companies go out of their way to acquire a broad, loyal customer base. Now these companies are attracting customers with clever content that educates, engages, and encourages them to act (to buy their products).
To imagine content marketing, imagine a traditional blog. Company blog content can share experiences and insights that are helpful to customers who are trying to make a product decision. Are you buying a new car You might come across content about the car that tells the stories of people talking about the efficiency or safety of the car in hopes that it will train you and move you enough to make a buying decision. As a recruiter, are you looking for new ways to build your employer brand or to reach new candidates? We’ll shamelessly embed our content to help you with this.
Content marketing has moved from blogs to the wide world of social media. Today, curated Instagram profiles, appealing Facebook pages and “confident” Twitter handles help to attract masses of people and turn them into customers. Social media is one of the next big frontiers in the future of ecommerce as it offers creative ways to target different groups of customers who may not have moved from basic forms of content marketing to buyers.
Comments are closed.