According to a study published by eMarketer, global eCommerce sales are expected to exceed 27 trillion dollars until 2020. The growth of eCommerce is mind-boggling! Digital commerce has gone beyond “shopping something from a website” to a series of interactions that rely on technology to delivering goods. Today online commerce influences up to 56% of in-store purchases, while eCommerce itself represents almost 10% of U.S. retail sales and that figure is growing by nearly 15% annually.
When it comes to eCommerce trends, Krish TechnoLabs is the leading full-service eCommerce agency with a roster of retail and B2B clients. To assist you to enhance your business, we have prepared a list of top 5 eCommerce trends that you can watch for in the year 2018 — Major developments that companies need to consider to ensure their online and in-store sales growth to get ahead of the competition.
AR (Augmented Reality) will be huge in 2018. Brands roll out new features that allow consumers to use their mobile devices to visualize items in their home before purchasing. With AR technologies, customers can see exactly how the products look in their environment. For example, consumers can envision big items like furniture before ordering, and people looking for eyewear can put on their face, and try the frames virtually before ordering. Amazon added augmented reality directly into its existing, conversion-focused app’s search function. The AR view feature lets you view thousands of products in your home and office before you buy them, including electronics and tools.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) will create the perfect customer experience where millennials will see a significant shift, most retailers’ and brands’ targeting strategy, veering away from marketing to a pre-defined, relatively large and varied group of people. Retailers are getting better at leveraging consumer and behavioral data, targeting much more specifically with the idea of peer to peer or one to one marketing.
Mobile Commerce will gain a stronger foothold in 2018. From buying products and services to actually checking out or buying in-store, mobile checkout will become a convenience that no consumer will want to do without and that no retailer can afford to ignore. Mobile Commerce’s biggest challenge will now become its greatest asset. With the advancement of simplified payment technology on mobile, including facial recognition and fingerprint, the percentage of transactions completed on mobile will boost significantly. Amazon Go, the eCommerce giant’s prototype cashier-less store allows customers to simply shop and walk out of the store. Purchases are automatically scanned and charged to their account.
Thanks to the reliable attribution model between digital and in-store: ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) Ratios, retailers will now be able to know how many dollars of in-store sales are attributable to every dollar spent on digital space. The tools to measure a retailer’s in-store impact on digital investments are now more advanced and accessible to retailers.
While B2B investment in commerce capability is the priority for many B2B owners, the emerging expectations of B2B buyers are pushing the need for B2C-like functionalities. The growth of the mobile ubiquity, digital-savvy millennials, and relentless optimization of eCommerce technology is forcing the hand and pace of the traditionally slow-moving B2B sector.
In 2018, many B2B users and buyers will experience frictionless, B2C-like ordering and purchasing experience as they continue to transit product discovery and buying behaviors to online and mobile. B2B firms are expected to spend more on eCommerce technology than online retailers do, by 2019, and most of the contribution comes from eCommerce platform vendors like Hybris, Magento, etc. which are rolling out B2C functionalities that co-exist with complex B2B business rules like volume pricing, partial orders, etc.
Retail shopping is not dying, but the digital transformation has begun. Physical experiences and on-site interactions are more important than ever. A new kind of retail stores and in-person experiences, rooted in digital, will start to replace outgoing retailers. 50% of millennials prefer to visit physical stores at some point in the buying journey. Merchants will have to master the succession of showroom and web events, product demos, in-store experiences and more.
As buyers continue to put a high value on both, versatility and the depth of online shopping, the convenience of purchasing, picking up and returning items locally, online merchants will grow their physical footprint. Brick and mortars will be digitizing their infrastructure and begin rolling out new eCommerce features based on customer experience and convenience, with a strong digital flavor.
Knowing the essential techniques to improve your conversion rates is vital to any eCommerce marketing strategy. These are the significant eCommerce trends and innovations across the customer lifecycle to shape up your 2018 eCommerce strategy. Follow these trends, and you’ll see your average order value (AOV) and revenue per visitor (RPV), grow in 2018 and beyond. And you’ll certainly see a high return on your investment.
Krish TechnoLabs is a professional Magento partner with a roster of certified Magento developers. Krish has delivered high-grossing digital commerce solutions for clients in various industries across the globe from its India, USA, Dubai, and France offices.
Never miss any post, stay tuned!
Shivi Rao is a content marketer with Krish. She has worked in various industries spanning technology, science, rural marketing, startups & unicorns, eCommerce business, and digital marketing, believing that content is the foundation to facilitate the visibility of any organization and ensuring her words do the same. In her free time, you can either find her lifting weights in the gym or feeding the strays.
21 December, 2022 After WooCommerce, Shopify is the 2nd most loved and used eCommerce platform worldwide. Shopify is an entirely feature-rich eCommerce platform. It offers many drag-and-drop options, and its apps work tremendously for store owners. In addition, Shopify is easy to use as it doesn't require depth coding.
Never miss any post, stay tuned!
