eCommerce Trend - 2020
Many new technologies and trends are emerging every day, which changes the way people shop. Each trend needs to be analyzed and adopted in due course if it’s truly going to drive your eCommerce brand forward — otherwise, you run the serious risk of falling drastically behind your competition.
Let’s analyze the latest customer shopping trends and take a look into the revolutionary technologies to get an understanding of how it enhances the shopping experience in the digital world.
Emerging Trends and Technologies -
1) AI-powered personalization - In today’s hyper-commoditized market, where differentiating a business from the likes of giants like Amazon, Alibaba, and Flipkart, is becoming increasingly difficult; e-commerce vendors are focusing on providing a superior customer experience. A means to accomplish this has been to use technology that drives a high degree of personalization, such that each customer is treated as an individual target segment, rather than a part of a generalized mass.
Many AI companies are transforming e-commerce by devising unique solutions for e-commerce companies. For e-commerce businesses, AI technology is becoming increasingly important since it holds the potential for dynamic and adaptable targeting, which helps companies get the right pitch, at the right time, to the right customer, on the right platform.
2) Social Commerce - If we go for a Social Commerce definition, It refers to the concept of buying and selling of products via social media platforms. This is an emerging trend in the eCommerce industry. The whole process aims to create a more personalized and targeted in-app shopping experience for your online shoppers.
Benefits You Can’t Ignore
- Grow Your Audience Base
- Better SEO Ranking
- Long-Term Customer Loyalty
- Social Analytics
- Smooth checkout process
3) Interactive Product Visualization - The rise of mobile VR technology is about to create a new playing field in the retail industry - and everyone needs to adapt. Virtual reality projects the images or videos of a product like you are viewing them in 3D.
The customer-oriented benefits of AR are many. AR renders customizable UX content that matches user needs. In industries such as apparel, cosmetics, home decor, and accessories, stores can allow their customers to virtually try on their products or to decorate their living room without actually having to physically buy the products. This feature will help architects, designers, and contractors a lot. As now they will be able to customize the design in real-time as per client’s requirements.
4) Bring on the Bots - Retail and eCommerce bots operate in messengers and websites to provide your customers with seamless omnichannel experience and turn them into regulars. These intelligent personal assistants operate 24/7/365 and use natural language to create a personalized purchase journey for every consumer and target audience.
According to the grand view research report, the global Chatbot market is expected to reach $1.23 billion in 2025, with an annual growth of 24%. Already, 80% of businesses are using or planned to use chatbot by 2020.
Here are just a few ways in which bots are reinventing retail:
Bots can offer instant, real-time customer service across multiple channels (voice call, text, email, messaging app, website, and more).
Bots allow simple, convenient purchases via message-based interactions.
Bots can provide relevant, actionable offers in real-time, personalized to a customer’s trends.
Bots are able to deliver alerts and updates regarding available inventory.
5) Voice Commerce - Voice commerce makes use of voice recognition technology to reduce end-users’ dependence on hardware (like a mouse and keyboard) by allowing them to use voice commands to find and purchase products online. To use voice commerce, all you need is a voice-powered device and a voice assistant.
Seventy-five percent of U.S. homes will have at least one smart speaker by the end of 2020, and while voice commerce currently accounts for 3 percent of consumer shopping budgets, that total is projected to increase to 18 percent in just three years. Build out a simple system for reorders.
Strategies to create a better consumer experience for your voice shoppers:
Build out a simple system for reorders
Make comparison shopping and in-the-moment deals simple
Stay focused on cutting-edge customer service capabilities
Deliver an experience that's visible and personal
6) Video Marketing- Gold Mine of SEO - The definition of video marketing is not complex. In fact, it’s rather simple: using video to promote or market your brand, product or service. A strong marketing campaign incorporates video into the mix. Customer testimonials, videos from live events, how-to videos, explainer videos, corporate training videos, viral (entertainment) videos — the list goes on.
WHY ??? - Just under half of the consumers watch more than an hour of video content on Facebook or YouTube, and YouTube alone represents more than 500 hours of video watched daily. Here are a few of the reasons why:
Multipurpose and cross-device
Emotional connection
Shareable
Trusted and authentic
Google loves video content
So, why not use video marketing to move them through the sales funnel?. Website visitors are 64 – 85% more likely to buy a product on an online retail site after watching a video.
