The e-Commerce industry is continuously growing and last year, it made over 3.5 trillion US dollars of revenue. Its revenue is even expected to grow up to 6.54 trillion US dollars by 2022. This industry is simply set for continuous growth and surely, many businesses surrounding this have a lot in store for this year.
Whether you’re a curious online shopper or someone who has a business in this industry, you may want to keep track of the latest e-Commerce trends. It’s because either to help you grow your business or to help improve your online shopping experience.
- Interactive Product Visualization
When shopping online, there are many customers who are always hesitant about choosing the right product. Sure, they see product descriptions, customer reviews, and even social media influencers advertising the product, but sometimes, these things are still not enough.
Interactive product visualization allows buyers to see what they are planning on purchasing in different angles. This basically gives the customers an in-store experience. It’s as if they are holding the actual product before they virtually check out.
This means that they can inspect a product up-close through the use of their screens and flipping, turning, and rotating the angle of the image of the product that they are planning to buy. Interactive visualization can also allow the customers to see the product in different designs or colors.
- Personalization or customization
Speaking of seeing the product in different designs and angles, there are now online stores or brands that allow their customers to build their own product orb customize it the way they want it. An example is how Converse and Nike allow their customers to create their own shoes by choosing colors and materials.
This may have been around for quite a while now, but this market will continue to grow as more and more people are going after being unique. From a consumer’s point of view, it’s simply easier to buy something that suits their own preferences.
Another aspect of personalization in the industry is how the e-Commerce platforms curate the feeds of their customers based on their previous searches and purchases. There are also e-Commerce platforms that only focus on specific items for a specific audience.
An example is Mercato.com that is an e-Commerce platform that focuses on groceries and specialty food and products. What makes this different from other online grocers is that it works with independent groceries and food artisans.
Many e-Commerce platforms do this already. As a shopper, you’ve probably noticed that your feed has been offering you items that you’re really likely to buy. This is because your previous purchases are tracked and so the promotions that you’re likely to see are related to your previous purchases.
- E-Commerce Businesses Becoming Brick-and Mortar shops
It’s the norm for established businesses to go online and be part of the e-Commerce industry, but right now, there seems to be a trend of online shops setting up their physical stores. Most of the time, online businesses would be present in bazaars or would set-up a pop-up store that many are actually looking forward to visiting.
This will be more successful for online businesses that are doing good in terms of customer loyalty and sales. You could also offer more discounts when running a brick and mortar store as you can save on credit card processing fees. Many people will prefer still prefer paying with their card, but if you run a cash discount program, it will incentivize more people to pay with cash and spend more at the same time.
- Re-Commerce
If you haven’t heard of re-commerce before, it basically means the market for used or preloved items. Sure, this has also been around for a long time, but experts see that this sector of the e-Commerce is getting bigger each year.
In 2018, around 24 billion US dollars of sales from the whole e-Commerce industry came from this sector. By 2023, it is expected to blow up to 51 billion US dollars.
More and more e-Commerce platforms are choosing to focus on second-hand items because of the changes in today’s market. Platforms like eBay and Craigslist are still the go-to in terms of this, but even Facebook now has a market place where anyone can sell preloved items. The growth of this sector is mainly thanks to the consumers’ awareness of sustainability.
- Real-time responses through AI or Chatbots
Customers love it when they get responses in a timely manner or as quick as possible. This is why most online shops already have chatbots or AI-based systems. In terms of responding to customers, chatbots are useful for this. The use of chatbot can be used for common queries and for filing of complaints.
When it comes to managing the inventory or carrying out processes, AI assistants can be helpful. On a business perspective, this can help the business owners to lessen the manpower hours. However, this can still be faulty at times. It’s still important that someone see through the processes.
The e-Commerce industry is getting bigger and convenience is what it really offers to online consumers. Definitely, online businesses that will remain to thrive in the next few years are the ones that cater to the everchanging needs of the consumers.
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