#008: Insights_10 top eCommerce trends in 2023 for B2B and B2C businesses
eCommerce has seen tremendous growth since the beginning of the pandemic. The onset of the pandemic has forced retailers and customers to shop online – be it essentials or luxury items. With the implementation of lockdowns worldwide, the availability and accessibility of day-to-day commodities became a next to impossible task. It was the online market that made the delivery of these essentials convenient. It’s not only B2C and D2C business models that have taken the road of e-retailing. Many B2B businesses have also found the digital commerce platform and eCommerce trends of 2023 productive and profitable. Analyzing the status quo, it is evident that B2B, D2C, and B2C eCommerce is here to stay and grow tremendously.
Online shopping trends have had its impact worldwide. The e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 6.3 trillion US dollars in 2023. It is also estimated that in 2023, eCommerce retail purchases might rise from 14.1% to 22%.
Here’re the top 10 eCommerce trends in 2023 that will impact the online retail business:
Trend #1: Augmented Reality (AR) commerce
Augmented Reality or AR, has changed customer product interactions. With AR, businesses can create interactive, life-size 3D models for different products. These realistic models allow customers to visualize how the products will look and fit in their homes and offices. Getting a virtual tour of the product gallery and interacting with the 3D product model is a novel experience. A shopping experience like this will certainly be unusual and endearing for the customers.
The above example displays a sofa as shown with the IKEA Place app via Augmented Reality. For a long time, IKEA has been employing bleeding-edge technologies like AR to help shoppers choose products with utmost accuracy like they would while shopping at a physical store.
Trend #2: MACH (Microservices, API-led, Composable & Headless) commerce
Acing the list of the upcoming eCommerce trends in 2023 is MACH commerce. MACH architecture supports building specific business functionalities that can be managed independently. The frontend and backend utilities are connected through various APIs, enabling them to run as decoupled units. Such a headless commerce architecture allows the freedom to modify the frontend store as per customer expectations, prevailing trends, and market dynamics for the ever-increasing number of touchpoints without being influenced by the backend system.
Several eCommerce platforms like commercetools and Salesforce Commerce Cloud have been revolutionizing the eCommerce ecosystem via their MACH commerce solutions.
Trend #3: BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick up In-Store) solutions
BOPIS retail is one of the digital commerce ecosystem’s best strategies. It gives customers the benefit of browsing and selecting a product from the comfort of their homes and getting the product as per their convenience without waiting for the traditional delivery system. It is one of the latest eCommerce trends in 2023 that focuses on building a customer-centric shopping experience.
The above example is from Petco, a pet food retailer, which, thanks to BOPIS solutions, saw an increase in their overall online sales by 48% in 2018. The best part about BOPIS: customers are more likely to purchase additional products when picking up their orders in-store.
Trend #4: BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) solutions
BNPL changed how B2B and B2C eCommerce functioned a couple of years ago. This payment option enables the customers to make a purchase and facilitate the payment via a third party that pays on their behalf. Of course, customers need to register their details with a third party that takes care of the payment. Once the payment is processed, the customers get their product and repay the amount to the third party within a fixed period. This way, customers don’t have to pay for the product immediately and can do so in fixed installments.
The above example is from Boohoo, a fast-fashion US giant offering four different BNPL solutions. When you click on the product page, you find all the three BNPL options displayed under the description section. Of course, each BNPL offering comes with a different set of terms and conditions, but still, all of them allow you to pay in installments comfortably.
Trend #5: Data for eCommerce personalization
Undeniably, data is a treasure trove for businesses, especially in the digital retail landscape. Every interaction, click, like, wishlist item, or ‘add to cart’ action generates data merchants can use to personalize eCommerce interactions and experiences.
Online retailers can enhance the customers’ shopping experience by presenting them with dynamic content per their browsing history, purchase history, on-site interactions, demographics, and more. Some excellent examples of personalized shopping are when customers get relevant suggestions on the eCommerce website like:
- Personalized Product Recommendations
- Recently Viewed Products
- Recently Purchased Products
- People Also Looked For
- Frequently Bought Together
Offering a custom-curated, secure, and seamless shopping experience, retailers earn happy customers, rapid sales growth, increased repeat purchases, reduced cart abandonment rates, and escalated word-of-mouth publicity.
Trend #6: Sustainable and safe eCommerce solutions
In eCommerce, sustainability is related to the justified use of resources while facilitating the customers with desired products and services. When it comes to shopping, whether in physical stores or on eCommerce websites, a lot of trash is produced in the form of unsold products, damaged goods, returned orders, actual physical space that runs on electricity, undelivered packages, and more. Not using the available resources fruitfully contributes to severe issues like global warming, the piling up of non-degradable waste material, and climate change.
By 2025, the global eCommerce plastic packaging waste is projected to rise to 4,533 million pounds.
For example, H&M has been giving out shopping boxes that can be turned into clothes hangers. Moreover, these shopping bags are made from paper that is 80% recycled, unlike the traditional bags available. Considering the audience group of the brand, it includes shoppers between 18-35 of age, concerned about the environment, and eager to indulge with brands offering sustainable packaging solutions.
Trend #7: Voice commerce and conversational commerce
A part of customization and personalization is offering customers to browse the products listed on an eCommerce website via voice commands. Another aspect of elevating customer experience is when customers can chat with bots or other automated messaging apps to easily resolve their queries. Voice commerce has also enabled customers to search for products in different languages and dialects, also playing a pivotal role in serving differently-abled customers.
The above example is from Nestle that launched the GoodNes Alexa skill to offer a visual voice-led browsing experience to its customers. This feature helps coffee lovers in enhancing their coffee-making skills via voice and visual guidance. GoodNes Alexa functions as a visual guide for customers and can be easily accessed on Safari or Chrome (both web and mobile).
Trend #8: Omnichannel commerce
Modern customers use not one but several channels (mobile, web, social, in-store, emails, etc.) to purchase a product or service online. This use of diverse channels for buying products and services necessitates retailers to be omnipresent and deliver an omnichannel customer experience.
Sometimes retailers provide additional product discounts if customers buy them from a mobile app instead of a website. In a different scenario, customers might add a few products to their shopping cart via a social store after being presented with a sponsored ad or an irresistible offer. Therefore, retailers must offer an omnichannel customer experience across the evolving number of intersection points and devices.
Oasis, a clothing brand, based out of the UK, offers its customers an exquisite way to shop from their websites, mobile app, social store, and more. On top of it, customers can view the same product at their convenience across several devices and platforms, thus offering them an omnichannel customer experience.
Trend #9: Contextualized real-time pricing
Competitive pricing is now more important than ever in an environment where inflation is causing businesses to make tough decisions. And because of contextualized real-time pricing, suppliers can control and modify prices. Additionally, it provides real-time, competitive price matching for customers across all channels. This allows you to offer more competitive pricing and fosters customer loyalty.
In the upcoming years, contextualized real-time pricing will be a real game-changer. It enables B2B eCommerce businesses to provide customers with consistent, tailored prices both online and offline. Smartphone payments and mobile retailer applications saw a surge in popularity in 2022, which mainstream retailers used to boost foot traffic in their brick-and-mortar stores. However, to effectively use this technology, businesses must choose a commerce platform that centralizes product, customer, pricing, and stock data to comprehend customer behavior throughout the buying experience.
Trend #10: Metaverse
Metaverse is not just one of the hottest B2B eCommerce trends but a hot topic all over the wired world. Creating your brand’s space in the Metaverse has to be at the top of your to-do list to keep up with the ever-growing digital channels. And current social media platforms provide many interaction options because none can accurately simulate human behavior in real time. This is why the Meta platform—the parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—is keen on moving everybody to the Metaverse.
There are multiple ways B2B online shops can benefit from this future trend. Brands can immediately improve sales in their B2B marketplaces by offering online locations where businesses may try out products for their current and potential clients before buying.
In Thailand, YSL Beauty also launched its virtual store in the metaverse era. Metaverse is a unique yet familiar experience for shoppers that just might pave the way for it to become the future of online retail.