In the modern world of technology, eCommerce is becoming a significant strategy for growing businesses to go international, expand their market, and advance their customer experience both online and offline.
Only in 2023, global retail sales from eCommerce are anticipated to almost double their size, reaching 6.54 trillion US dollars compared to 2019.
Through the escalated purchasing power of worldwide customers, continually advancing technologies and infrastructures, and the prevalence of social media users the future of eCommerce is more vibrant than ever.
However, this bright future is being shaped today by the following trends and behaviors.
The Ascendant Presence of Omnichannel Shopping
As the lines of digital and the real world continually merge into one another, multiple channels start dominating customers’ journeys of purchase. According to the Harvard Business Review study a vast majority, around 73% of customers tend to use multiple channels during their shopping path.
To put it simply, omnichannel shopping suggests investigating the primary questions of what, where, when, why, and how your customers purchase a product presented in a particular channel.
Nowadays, the practice of researching a certain product online, and getting it from a store gains more popularity. The increased amount of channels your potential customer uses elevates the likelihood of the extension of average order value.
Let’s decode this with an example. Studies suggest that an average user who uses more than 4 shopping channels is inclined to spend 9% more in the store than those who simply use one channel.
How to make use of this data?
- Attentively integrate your online and offline channels into one successive multi-channel shopping.
- Invest in creating appropriate purchase touchpoints for your potential customers who start researching online and get the product offline.
- Be considerate, that you should have in-synced online and offline data, for quicker analytical and strategic business decisions.
The experience with multichannel shopping suggests that a well-operating ecommerce website is essential if you want to succeed in the global market. Fortunately, the experts know the right way of benefiting from this trend.
So, if you are in a search for the best partner in solving your eCommerce related problems Digilite should be your final choice with years of experience in eCommerce web design and development and a rich portfolio of eCommerce company websites!
The Rise of Social Shopping
Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube are among the prominent social media channels that significantly improved the shopping experience of their users by the implementation of the “buy” buttons. In the modern digital world, with the advancement of social media’s selling attributes, those are expanding their wings above just the advertising channels.
Modern social media channels have made it possible to make easy, fast, and convenient purchases for their users, through their preferred platforms. Let’s take an example. Instagram launched a feature of “shoppable post” that allows businesses to include product tags and stickers in their posts or stories.
The feature enables the users to find the following information when tapping on the tag:
- A brief description of the products
- Product’s image
- Its price
- A link where the product can be purchased.
This trend significantly cuts the time and efforts of users making a purchase, thus resulting in a more productive and time-consuming shopping experience.
How to make use of this trend?
Without doubts over the powerful influence of social media, as early as now, think of more creative strategies for using your platforms to elevate your effective social media presence. Also, make sure to set up tactical posts on social selling to step on the next pillar of success.
If you want to take a full force on the advantages of this eCommerce trend start multiplying your social media followers and powerhouse with the plentiful experience of our digital marketing specialists.
Global eCommerce Blossoms Outside the U.S.
As mentioned earlier global eCommerce sales are expected to reach more than $6 billion by 2023. Current statistics suggest that there will be more than 2.1 billion shoppers purchasing goods and services online by 2021. Interestingly, a significant number of these shoppers live outside of the U.S.
Interestingly, while more than half of the fastest-growing countries of electronic commerce are the ones in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America shows some outstanding results as well, inclusive of the world’s fastest grower in eCommerce, Mexico:
Moreover, as various sources show the king of the eCommerce world is China.
Noticeably, having an estimated $1.9 trillion in eCommerce sales in 2019 alone, China’s online sales are three times more of the U.S. Exceptionally, China shows a share of 54.7% in the global eCommerce market which is almost twice as much that of the next 5 countries combined together.
Keeping up with the statistical data of the other parts of the world, in Australia, the eCommerce revenue is predicted to reach a market volume of around $27 million by 2024, while fashion dominating its market’s largest segment with over $7 million in 2020.
With the help of its digital population, Canada has particularly shown some good results and a potentially growing market in this field. Statistics show that in 2019 there were around 28 million Canadian shoppers purchasing goods online. The eCommerce revenue by 2024 is expected to exceed 33 U.S. dollars.
Important note: Localization will become the game-changer for the future of internationally expanding brands. Considering this, every $1 invested in localization, will result in 25$ ROI (return on investment) according to the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) study.
How to make use of this trend?
Offering your customers opportunities for local payments, translating content into local languages, and using local currencies should be a priority for your growing business if you want to have well-planed chances of success in cross-border territories.
Voice Commerce Is on Its Rise!
No surprise that we are on our way to witnessing voice browsing dominance in the world of online shopping, as more and more customers are turning into this alternative way of finding the desired products. Statistics show that in 2019 around 26% of customers did an online purchase using a smart speaker.
Google seems to do the best job in the voice search landscape with the most accurate answers compared to Apple and Amazon:
How to make use of this trend?
Corresponding to this trend more companies are starting to be attentive to creating appropriate solutions for voice searches. As 40% of voice results are from the snippets of search engine results, brands have started to include and optimize their results to search snippets.
If you want to be in the winners’ division of the voice search war, featured snippets should be your primary focus, at least for now.
Sustainable eCommerce Comes with Great Force
The growing tendency of customers wanting to follow brands with environmental and social values is becoming more vivid. However, simply speaking about social causes is no longer enough for the modern customer. Now, people value actions that raise the importance of eco-friendly supply chains, effective waste management, and the use of green manufacturing practices.
Zero Waste Packaging:
To put it simply, zero-waste packaging is the system of packaging where all of the materials are recycled, reused, or used resulting in no waste product. Besides eliminating waste, this system also requires brands to show efforts in creating packaging resources that will be none burned or buried but recovered.
As the current trend shows minimalistic packaging, redesigned shipping cases, and reduced package sizes all will be highly present in the future direction of global eCommerce.
Amazon, for example, is now charging fees to vendors who don’t meet the requirements of their packaging guidelines. The requirements incorporate using fully recycled mailers, replacement of boxes with flexible mailers, and better adjustable products with corresponding sized boxes. As Amazon informs, unnecessary or oversized packaging will result in a $1.99 charge.
How to make use of this trend? – review and if possible turn into zero waste management, benefiting not only your business but also the environment.
Sustainable Manufacturing:
Resource-saving and energy-sufficient manufacturing is another major component of environmentally friendly eCommerce philosophy that modern customers value.
Experts suggest that customer satisfaction will be greatly dependent on not only the price but also the quality of the manufacturing process of products in the future.
Currently, distributed manufacturing systems (DMS) are the key to reaching the maximal benefits of sustainable manufacturing. Those are more appropriate concepts for better sustainable manufacturing systems, which operate thanks to the networks of adaptable and flexible mini-factories. Those at the same time help to bring the manufacturing closer to the customer and by cutting transportation requirements reduce emissions.
How to make use of this trend? – Brainstorm the alternative short-cut ways to bring your product to your customer with reduced environmental damage.
Importance of Eco-friendly supply chains
Companies are putting more effort into creating complex technology stacks to be able to cut waste and become environmentally more efficient. Automated rule-based order routes connected to multi-location inventories are now able to manage and supply to the warehouses that are closest to the customer. In this manner, the automatically routing orders not only save time and result in customer fulfillment but also drastically reduce shipping costs.
Major retailers are taking apart environmental responsibility as well, by asking various brands to set goals and report on their progress toward degrading annual corporate greenhouse gas emissions. Walmart is a good example of its sustainability index for its suppliers.
The company checks each of its supplier’s commitment to:
- Ability to sell sustainable products
- Create zero waste
- Use 100% renewable energy
How to make use of this trend? -Thoroughly review all of your supply chains and try to narrow down your list to only those that correspond to the above mentioned environmental trends.
Predictions about the future don’t come from crude opinions, but rather well-analyzed tendencies and statistics. And as those show the future for eCommerce is bright and prosperous.
