Posted by Oleg Kaluger | | | Category by E-Commerce

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It is an era of the E-commerce revolution. The E-commerce dynamics are changing rapidly and the online businesses are already getting crazy about it. In the article, I would like to share with you some of the new trends in E-commerce and how it is expected to change in future. As we know that E-commerce is an ever-changing business and it very well adopts the trends to optimize the customers online shopping experience. The e commerce industry has changed a lot in a short period. There is no doubt that E-commerce has a lot of opportunities for the businesses to access customers faster and it also helps the businesses to grow rapidly. There are many online eCommerce platforms that you can use to start your e-commerce business. Magento e commerce is the best eCommerce platform that you can use to make an advanced and stylish eCommerce website.

It is expected that until 2021, the retailing sales of E-commerce would increase by $4.9 trillion. It means the growth rate of E-commerce businesses is projected to be 265%, it is insane. The eCommerce market is continuously growing and the growth has become very rapid from the past few years. The slope of global E-commerce sales is moving upwards and there are no chances of decline. The companies are using eCommerce marketing tools to raise their sales and grow their businesses. The eCommerce industry is going through both evolutionary and revolutionary phase and the digital commerce platform dynamics in the market keep changing. Here are some of the major prediction about the eCommerce industry that would give you an idea about the future change in the market.

Omnichannel Shopping

The businesses are fully aware of the buying behavior of their customers. Previously, you can distinguish between the physical and online retailing stores. Now, the companies know that the customers are more likely to shop from multiple channels, you can call it omnichannel eCommerce. The physical retailing stores also realized the need for eCommerce platforms, by doing this, they would not just easily accessible to the customers, but can also build a solid brand image and effective customers relationships through an online eCommerce website.

The businesses start to realize that they cannot go along with just physical stores. The physical stores are less visible to the customers as compared with the online eCommerce stores. Most of the customers see the product online and then buy it from the online store. About 73% of customers use multiple online channels for shopping. If you are a physical store, still you would need an online platform to display your product to maximum customers. So, it can be said that the e commerce technology is not just limited to buy and sell your products online, but you can also use this amazing platform for marketing purposes and make your product accessible to more customers. In the future, the retailing business will be all about synchronizing between the online and offline data. In the future, multi-channel shopping will be a trend and the businesses have already realized that need.

B2B E-commerce

By the year 2020, B2B ECommerce expected to doubles the size of B2C ECommerce. In 2021, the sales of B2B ECommerce are expected to be $1.184 trillion in the USA. One thing to consider here is that B2B businesses are more complex than the B2C e commerce because, in B2B, you have to simplify the shipping and improve the experience because of a sale in B2B worth more than100 times B2C sale. The buying process of the B2B buyers is also very different and complicated than the B2C. In the B2B, the buyer has to go through negotiations, approvals, sales interactions etc. For the B2B business, it is very important to personalize their access to the customers. It is expected that shortly the B2B businesses will use ECommerce personalization features to effectively deal with their clients.

Most of the B2B businesses are using customized orders, dynamic pricing and digitized line sheets that rank reordering to make the customers online experience better by using effective b2b eCommerce solutions. The dynamic content technology is the future of eCommerce marketplace that is more effective to create content and brand the products of any eCommerce business depending on the specific needs of one customer. Many of the businesses are also using the chatbots on their site for better communication with the customers. As we know that after the quality of the product, it is the online content that helps you to stand out the competition. The content marketing is expected to be more advanced and the companies are now more focusing on creating the content for every phase of sales funnels such as Awareness-stage, Consideration-stage and Decision-stage.

It is estimated, in the eCommerce B2B business the individuals are likely to use around 6 channels to access any product. The omnichannel strategy is going the next initiative of many companies and many of the companies have already started using omnichannel strategy for access more customers. Around 61% of the B2B companies will start using omnichannel strategy in future.

E-commerce Personalization

This year proves to be the year of eCommerce personalization, where a huge number of businesses have started following this trend. The personalization has a huge impact on the eCommerce online shopping experience. The customer’s overall standards for the personalization also increase because 33% of the customers do not buy from you if you are not providing enough personalization features. ECommerce personalization is a good tool to build effective relationships with customers. One thing you must remember that with the passage of time the personalization is not just limited to remembering the name of customers and send them personalized emails, but now the businesses gather a detailed information about their customers to create their persona, it helps the businesses to personalize the shopping experience of the customers depending on their preferences and interests.

There are many ways to implement personalization in your businesses. Many companies also put cart recommendations on their eCommerce website. Once the customer adds items in the cart, the related product will display on his account. You can say that when it comes to eCommerce businesses, it is a complete science, where you have to understand your customers and their shopping behavior to provide the best personalization shopping experience to them.

Voice E-commerce

One of the recent trends in the eCommerce industry is the voice eCommerce technology, you can also call it V-Commerce. There are many voice devices such as Google Home, Amazon Echo, etc. The use of voice technology is expected to increase in future that would allow the customers to build better communication with the brands through their voice interactions. Any internet activity, whether it is browsing, buying or selling, is done by using your voice, is the voice technology tool. For searching a particular item on the website, you just have to call its name, rather than typing it in the search bar. The customers have already started using voice technology for browsing the data. It is predicted that in the US, around $40 billion sales will be generated with the voice technology. Voice eCommerce is expected to raise the sales to $40 billion. The Amazon eCommerce platform is using voice technology since 2016 and it is one of the first movers of this new technology.

In the case of AI, the computer can individually recognize your voice and it can also save the history of customers interaction to better understand their concerns. So, you can say that in the next 5 years the V-Commerce will change the whole customers’ interaction with the brand and it would also make the shopping experience of customers more effectively.

New Payment Methods

When it comes to shopping online, the payment method can have a huge impact on the customers’ decision of buying. Businesses need to make payment methods more flexible and provide their customers with many options to make a transaction. So, when you are doing online business, you should understand the demand of buyer and the payment methods that they are more likely to use. No matter, how good your products are or how well you have done the branding of your business, if your buyers are not comfortable with the payment method, they would not buy anything from you.

There are many new payment methods such as PayPal, Google pay, Samsung or Apple pay used by many companies. These are all digital services to transfer the money that allows the customers to have a smooth online shopping experience. The social payment options are also trending in the eCommerce platforms that would help you to sell more products using your social media accounts. No doubt, social media is an amazing platform to improve your online products sales. In future, digital payment options are going to alter the cash and cards. Around 70% of the people are expected to shift from cash and credit to digital transaction methods by 2030.

You might hear about the cryptocurrency; it is going to revolutionize the future payments of the eCommerce platform. There are many large companies already using the cryptocurrency as a method of payment. The Shapeshift and Overstock partnered that allows the Shapeshift to permit its customer’s more cryptocurrency payment options.

The social payment options are also trending in the eCommerce platforms to provide a seamless experience to their clients. Using social media payment options, customers can easily transfer funds. All major social platforms have their payment options for the customers. Some of the major social media payment options are Google wallet, Apple pay, Twitter Buy, Facebook payments, etc. Although social media is an effective way to transfer money it also has some deficiencies. Here, you are always at threat by the hacker, especially if you are using social media for online payment, your loss would be higher.

The social media methods of payment are still very famous for their seamless experience and it is also expected to be in demand for the next 5 years.

Trending Social Media Shopping

As we all know that the trends of social media shopping are increasing rapidly. Most of the businesses are using social media platforms to sell their products online. Social media is also a good medium for the marketing and branding of the products. There is no doubt that shopping on social media is very convenient and easy. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest are one of the most famous social media mediums, where you can find the buy button to make a purchase. Instagram is one of the finest platforms to sell your products and they also introduce the shoppable post options to the individuals, who want to sell products online.

Now, social media shopping has cut the time, efforts and cost of selling the products for many new businesses. Here, you don’t have to invest a lot to money to start a business. Have you heard about the “Better Coupon Box”? It is a powerhouse feature used to increase followers on social media. Using this option, you can allow your visitors to have some discount on specific brands to your products.

So, the social media eCommerce is expected to increase in future because it has a lot of opportunities for the business to grow and have access to more customers.

M-Commerce Emerges

The mobile phone is an essential part of everyone’s life. You can use your mobiles to get any information online, communicate with people, learn something, book a car, order food and buy anything you want from house to socks. The businesses know that the best way to access their customers is through mobile phones. In the next 5 years, there will be an emergence of mobile commerce industry by using different types of smart technologies such as AI, VR and IoT. For shoppers, using mobile phones is more convenient for online shopping. The coming business strategies are more focused on the mobile phone because the majority of people use mobiles to buy something on the internet.

The mobiles phone is an effective tool to do personalized marketing for users. The businesses can send notifications to the users anytime on their mobile through app notifications or a text message on their phones. The next couple of years will be a game-changer for the use of the mobile on the eCommerce. Today, m-commerce go side-by-side with e-commerce and it is becoming the main attraction for many businesses. In 2017, it is evaluated that around 34.5% of the eCommerce sales are generated through M-commerce. Till 2021, M-commerce sales are expected to rise by 54%. The eCommerce businesses now prefer to create an app for their online platform, to make their products more accessible to the customers. With mobile devices, the customers can buy anytime, anytime, anywhere.

In the next five years, there are many of the new technologies expected to change entire M-commerce. The first technology is known as Augmented reality, it will improve the online shopping experience of your customers. This technology will allow you to get an exact image of the product in your mind. It is a good technology to engage more customers to your mobile devices.

The other innovation expected to implement on the m-commerce is messenger apps and Chatbots. The chatbots would allow you to have more effective and direct communication with your customers. These mobile technologies would help you to enhance the customers’ online buying experience and you can build better relationships with your customers.

Artificial Intelligence

The artificial intelligence expected to be a big game-changer for the eCommerce in the next five years. It will not only change the eCommerce dynamics but the overall customers experience on eCommerce platform would also change. In the coming years, the inventory and supply chain tasks are expected to controlled by the robots and smart machines. You can say that the use of artificial intelligence in the eCommerce would change the workforce in the eCommerce warehouses. The use of smart machines at eCommerce warehouses will save a lot of time because machines are faster than humans and they have no issue doing overtime.

The chatbots used for communicating with the customers will be operated by the robots. The AI chatbots are an intelligent system that learns from the human conversation and it also allows them to assist better and make the experience of customers more personalized. Robots in eCommerce would control all inventory and supply chain tasks. The AI assistants can manage many tasks simultaneously such as inventory management and handling inquiries. So, it can be said that the AI assistants with make the customers service more personalized and effective that would also allow the businesses to build trustful relationships with the customers.

On some of the eCommerce websites, you can find the chatbots for interacting with the customers. If you are an eCommerce business owner, you can also add chatbots on your website using any online chatbot eCommerce tools such as HubSpot’s Chatbot Builder is a free online tool to build your chatbot on your website.

IoT-Commerce

The internet of things or IoT is becoming a hot topic because it is being used in many home appliances such as the refrigerators, washing machines, kitchen. The IoT proves to be an amazing technology that has made every task easier. When it comes to worldwide retail and eCommerce sales, the top eCommerce platforms are finding the ways to effectively implement this amazing technology on the eCommerce businesses to optimize the online customer’s experience and change their shopping behavior.

The IoT technology can help the eCommerce companies in managing their inventories. For example, in many of the eCommerce businesses the customers complain about the out of stock items. The IoT devices linked with your inventory would send you notifications anytime some item gets out of stock, the IoT can also automatically buy some items if you are running short of it. It will minimize your inventory management efforts and reduce staff responsibilities. Internet of Things is going to be a big thing in the e-commerce industry.

As we all know that Amazon is a big player in the online retaining market, it has integrated the Amazon Dash Button on its online store that would make sure that you have all of your everyday essentials with you. So, you can say that the IoT devices have a lot of potentials to change the eCommerce business processing, and in the future, it would have a huge impact on the customers shopping experience.

Renewal of Brick-And-Mortar Models

Brick-And-Mortar is an old model that most of the businesses stopped using after 2007. The main reason for the backlash of Brick-And-Mortar model was the arrival of eCommerce businesses. Now the things have started changing again. This model is expected to back to action shortly. The Brick-And-Mortar model will provide an in-person online experience to the customers, without holding any inventory.

The perfect example of the Brick-And-Mortar model is the real estate industry, where the contractor just shows the virtual images of the houses or any other property without actually showing the house to the buyer. There are many showrooms using the same strategy, in the showrooms, the retailers show the virtual images and videos of the cars rather than holding the cars inventory at the place. The businesses are now using the virtual reality apps to digitally dealing with the customers and it also allows the customers to save their time.

VR Products Visualization

You might be familiar with the term augmented reality and vertical reality. Both technologies are to be used by the businesses to improve your online eCommerce experience. The use of VR is growing in different industries including the eCommerce retail business, as it allows the customers to have a more realistic experience of their online eCommerce shop. The VR improves the digital shopping experience of the customers. When the customers put the virtual reality gadget is on their face, he/she can feel like standing in a physical store and view the products as they are there. The main purpose of the VR is to make the digital shopping experience of customers closer to reality. The more real the customers’ experience would be, the more likely is the customer to visit you again. Virtual reality product’s display will improve customers’ online shopping experience

The other term you might hear of is Augmented reality, in this technology the customer can see the product video and some added virtual element, so he can have a better idea of the product. Just like VR, the AR is also a good tool to enhance the customer’s visualization of the product. The IKEA is one of the best eCommerce platforms, which launched an app called AR catalogue app. This app helps the customers to see how some item of furniture looks in their house. So, you can say that the VR and AR are big players in future that would entirely change the online shopping experience of the customers.

ROPO Will Increase

No matter you are an online eCommerce store or a physical store, you must have an online platform to access your customers and put up information about your product. Many of the online businesses have realized it and make their online websites or an eCommerce platform to be more visible to the customers. ROPO is a shopping behaviour of customers, that means Research Online Purchase Offline. Most of the customers see the product online and after getting its information they buy it at the physical retailing store. ROPO is actually midway between online and offline shopping and it is going to be in trends in future also.

The reason why customers use technique ROPO to buy any product is that the competition in the market is very high and prices for each company is quite different from each other, so the customers have to make online research to find the most reasonable and appropriate products out of all options. According to a recent report, it is estimated that around 82% of the customers use mobile devices to research for a specific product. For example, they look for CRM, mobile payments, geolocation tracking, prices and review. The ROPO also benefited the retailing businesses because now they can do personalized marketing for each customer and effectively brand their product. Many of the retailers build the customers profits by getting their data and then use this data for the personalization of the customer’s services.

Use of Blockchain

The blockchain market is not so big yet, but from the future point of view, this technology is very promising. Some of the online stores are already using blockchain technologies such as OpenBazaar. OpenBazaar is one of the best enterprise eCommerce solutions to build online stores that allow its customers to make their online transactions through cryptocurrencies. You can make your retailing store on this platform free- of- cost and without need for any programming and codding. Blockchain will be a part of e-commerce businesses in the coming years.

The blockchain is one of the fastest-growing eCommerce industries. The fastest-growing eCommerce industries. OpenBazaar actually uses the ‘proof of work’ model for the money transaction over the internet. In this platform, the token is generated after every transaction, this helps the eCommerce platform to maintain its transparency. In simple words, you can say that there is no mediator between buyer and seller. I have seen a rise in blockchain-based eCommerce platforms. The blockchain belongs to the cryptocurrency payment method and in future, it has a lot of scope in the eCommerce industry.

Conclusion

The dynamics of the electronic commerce industry are continuously changing depending on the customer’s demand and shopping behaviors. In this article, I have shared with you some of the eCommerce dynamics expected to trend in the next five years. E-commerce has a lot of opportunities for the companies to access their customers quicker and it helps the businesses to grow fast. The physical stores realized the need for online eCommerce platforms, so, they can easily access their customers, build a solid brand image and build customers relationships through the online eCommerce website. It is important for companies to offer payment methods more flexible and provides customers with many options to make a transaction.

The coming business trends are a focus on mobile technology because people use mobiles to buy on the internet. The mobile technology would also help you to enhance the customer’s online experience and you can build better relationships with customers. The smart machines use in the eCommerce warehouses will save a lot of time consumed to do the work manually. The IoT devices are also the most trending technologies that have a lot of potentials to modify eCommerce business operations and in the future. So, I must say that a lot of change is going to take place in the eCommerce industry in the coming future. The business needs to adopt new technology to cope up with change marketplace.