According to Statista, global e-commerce sales are set to grow by 246.15% by 2021. From USD 1.3 trillion in 2014 to USD 4.5 trillion in 2021. How is that possible? Find out!
The e-commerce industry is thriving and shows no signs of slowing down.
These days, stores cannot compete without offering excellent e-commerce options, and 56% of purchases in a store depend on digital commerce. This means that if you are not reaching customers online, you may be losing half of your potential revenue.
The rapid growth of e-commerce brings rapid change. It is no longer enough to post product photos on your website and hope that your ideal customers will find them. In 2018, there is a whole range of new trends that can bring major growth to e-commerce businesses.
Here are the 8 top trends that will change the way people buy and sell online.
1. Visual testing before purchase
1. Visual testing before purchase
Do you know what is better than seeing a product in a store before buying it?
Seeing it in your own home before you even make the payment.
Augmented reality and virtual reality will gain serious momentum in 2018. Ultimately, offering AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) options will become standard for businesses.
Houzz, an interior design and home decor company, found that AR increased the likelihood of consumers purchasing a product, and also kept them in the app 2.7 times longer.
IKEA also offers an AR app that lets you place 3D products in your home. These products are true to scale, so you can check whether the product will fit and how it will look in your space.
Ultimately, these additional benefits are worth the initial investment in new technologies. As e-commerce develops, consumers will buy from companies that let them visually test products before purchase.
2. Automation and chatbots for ordering online
2. Automation and chatbots
Facebook Messenger is increasingly convincing creators and consumers that it is worth using chatbots in marketing, customer service and sales.
With e-commerce, you can go one step further.
Domino’s uses its Messenger bot to order from the full menu. Speed and simplicity are priorities for consumers, which is why Domino’s pizzeria will certainly beat all the competition that does not decide to streamline operations with bots.
In addition, using a chatbot is an opportunity for Domino’s to meet consumer needs in a new way, proving that it is a helpful and future-oriented company.
3. Compatibility with voice search
As Amazon Echo, Google Home and other voice-activated devices gain popularity, voice search will become the preferred search method. 40% of millennials already use voice search before making an online purchase.
It is extremely important to optimize your business for voice search in 2018. Otherwise, there is a serious risk of losing a huge number of consumers who will choose the services of a competitor that offers the ability to make a purchase via voice-activated devices.
Walmart has enabled consumers to order any products by voice in Google Express, and in the future will let customers place in-store orders with Google Home. Target, Costco, Kohl's, Staples, Walgreens and many other stores are in the process of creating similar options for consumers.
4. Orders on mobile devices
62% of smartphone users have made an online purchase on their mobile device in the past six months. Due to the continuous development of mobile shopping, it is important to create an e-commerce site optimized for mobile devices.
Fingerprint and facial recognition technology, as well as one-click payments, will simplify mobile payments and encourage customers to move from computers to mobile phones. Mobile will soon become the preferred payment method for e-commerce transactions. Mobile traffic is estimated to reach 70% of e-commerce traffic by the end of this year.
Starbucks created a mobile app for ordering and payment back in 2015. By 2017, 30% of all Starbucks orders were paid for via mobile phones. The coffeehouse announced that its Mobile Order and Pay app is so popular that it causes congestion in stores and very long lines, which they are trying to solve by hiring more baristas. If ordering via mobile devices leads to a larger pool of consumers in the store, then it is clearly a profitable investment.
5. ROPO ("Research Online, Purchase Offline")
5. ROPO and offline measurability
It is difficult to track how digital efforts translate into offline sales.
Fortunately, ROPO ("research online, purchase offline") is a tool that will become more advanced and reliable in the coming year and will most likely help retailers accurately measure how their digital ads contribute to in-store sales.
ROPO combines information from social media, mobile tracking/geolocation, mobile payments, in-store inventory, analytics tools, CRM systems and more to determine which ads and website pages led consumers to make in-store purchases.
This is very important information. By knowing which digital ads most effectively contribute to sales, e-commerce companies can create higher-converting campaigns, better target campaigns and make sure that what they do online translates into sales profit.
6. Image search
Imagine you are in a store and you see a beautiful sofa, but you do not feel like paying the amount on the price tag. What do you do? You take a photo and use eBay search to find similar products at a definitely more attractive price.
As e-commerce moves to mobile, companies will start offering visual product search options using personal photos or photos found online. Image and voice search are estimated to account for 50% of all searches by 2020.
Because image search offers opportunities to find similar products at a lower price online, it may ultimately encourage consumers to shop online, even if they started their search in a physical store.
Several e-commerce companies have already successfully implemented image search features on their online platforms. Pinterest, for example, has its own image search feature. There, you can zoom in on an object in an image and find similar items.
7. High-quality videos
Even if consumers are online, they will still have the same questions about the functionality and appearance of a product that they would have in a physical store. To compete in e-commerce, you will need to answer all questions digitally, and one of the simplest ways to do that is to use video.
A high-quality video is one of the best ways to sell a product. Video can appeal to the customer's emotions, persuading them much more than plain text.
Redsbaby, an Australian stroller company, does this very well. Their videos about baby strollers show actors using Redsbaby strollers through a "typical day," so consumers can be confident that they know what they are buying, even though they have never seen it in a store.
8. Same-day or next-day delivery
Last year, Amazon opened many new centers near large cities so they could make same-day deliveries to customers. TechCrunch reported that Google will launch a competing fast delivery service. Google Shopping Express will offer same-day delivery from stores such as Walmart and Target.
Because these popular e-commerce sites offer delivery within a few hours, they win with most consumers who want to satisfy their needs quickly. Once this becomes the norm, people will feel comfortable with it, while if you do not give consumers the option of same-day or next-day delivery, they will turn to a competitor that takes care of it.
Summary
E-commerce is growing at a pace never seen before — by 2021, online sales are expected to reach USD 4.5 trillion. The key to success will be technologies such as VR and AR, which allow customers to test products at home, and chatbots that streamline ordering. Voice and image search are also becoming increasingly important, and are estimated to account for half of all searches in 2020.
Companies that do not invest in these trends may lose customers to competitors offering fast delivery or mobile shopping. The example of Starbucks shows that mobile ordering can be so popular that it even causes congestion in stores.
