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E-commerce market across the dimensions of the globe is slowly hiking towards the top of the success range with every passing year. The shift from the basic brick-mortar stores to e-shopping stores is drastic. People love to order their favorite things at the liberty of their doorstep. Going forward, if we address the e-commerce trends this year, then we have a lot that is going on and a huge chunk of trends which will soon take the center stage. The e-commerce world will see new heights in terms of sales and profits for the retailers. The focus here is to keep the e-commerce economic sales growing.
As per a research by eMarketer, the sales are expected to rise and pass $4 trillion by 2020. The e-commerce sector has new ideas popping up from all directions every now and then. With big giants of the e-commerce world competing against each other, it's difficult for everyone to outshine or even survive and meet the ever-evolving demand of the customer.
According to a research by PWC, more than 39 percent of the online shoppers get inspiration from various social media platforms for any purchase. It has become the need of the hour for all e-commerce organizations to keep a track of all the latest trends.
Let’s explore some of the trends around the buzzword e-commerce and discuss what is the list of trends that are going to dominate the e-selling and e-shopping world in the coming times.
Big Data Analytics
With millions of customers served with things from across the globe, e-commerce companies have not just piled up a lot of experience and industry insights but also a huge amount of data. Till a few years back this data was considered as good as a pack of trash, but with recent developments in fields like machine learning, precise pattern recognition, has made this virtual data a gold mine via which entrepreneurs can extract some invaluable information about the customer(s) whereabouts and behaviors.
A few years ago, such technologies were just being used by giant companies, mostly because of a huge amount of cost they brought along, but with time these are becoming easy on the pocket and are made accessible to organizations of all sizes who can now reap all the benefits of these technologies.
Omni Channel
E-commerce is basically as old as the internet. It all started with desktops, and with the emergence of smartphones came the mobile-first paradigm. Now when the mobile phones are going in the direction a saturation point, the companies are sliding towards a phenomenon called omnipresence. This means businesses will no more give the center stage to any device or platform, in future everything is on priority. This is because a large chunk of customers accesses the shopping e-space via more than one device. So, if you just have a website make sure you add an app to your list.
Product Tagging
The fusion between e-commerce and social media is still in its nascent stage, and product tagging is one of the newest trends which has come their way. Most of us are aware of affiliate marketing for a few years now where a bunch of influencers prompt shoppers to buy a given product based on a personal experience they have had. A parallel trend which is topping the charts is that people when shop online, post pictures about their shopping experience on various social media channels.
Both these ongoing trends are fusing and are all set to hit the mainstream by the coming year. Just like you can tag your social friends in any picture, you will easily be able to tag your new t-shirt or the pair of shoes or anything you buy to the product page of the e-commerce site you purchased it from. This not only helps businesses to get a better engagement but also open a new road for driving sales.
Custom Experience
Salespersons in the brick-mortar stores treat every customer in a different manner, we expect the same thing from e-commerce businesses soon. Since the priorities and aspirations of all customers are different from each-other, companies can study their previous behaviors to give them a personalized experience on the go, thus, ensuring an enhanced experience and by large, higher sales.
The race to top the list in the e-commerce sector is highly competitive and will always be. With the advent of newer technologies, the shoppers are now highly educated on what they are up to. So, the e-commerce companies must look for tactics for getting customers in the longer run. Thus, every e-commerce business needs to update themselves with the newest trends and technologies.