With the amazing rate at which eCommerce sales are growing, it’s safe to say that online shopping (or shopping in general) is experiencing a revolution. Mobile conversions are on the rise and don’t show signs of slowing down. User experience and web design are becoming more engaging, more interactive and more exciting. The whole online shopping experience is becoming easier than ever and the payment process is becoming more secure.
Everything is on a steady upward trajectory, so let’s see what upcoming period has in store for us. Here are this year’s hottest 5 eCommerce trends:
(Even) More Personalization
Personalization is the name of the game in eCommerce and in upcoming year merchants are going to take it even farther.
Ecommerce businesses have been diligently collecting data for years and now it’s time to turn those impressions into on-site personalization. Personalized product recommendations have become commonplace. Just think of how many times you’ve seen “Have you tried…?” or “You might also like” messages. If your eCommerce site is not doing it, you have to get on it right away.
Meanwhile, personalization moves beyond such messages. In future, it’s going to be all about personalized content predicted based on customer behavior analyses. What a person looks at and for how long is a powerful indicator of his or her personality, browsing habits, and shopping behavior.
For instance, if a customer bought gardening shears, the next time he or she logs in you can suggest items such as protective gloves, a cordless grass trimmer, and other garden tools.
You can also personalize the site content based on the information the user has already provided (age, sex, location, etc.) and offer products that might be of interest to that specific demographic.
Don’t Fear AI
While it may seem a bit risky to rely on artificial intelligence to interact with customers, we have to remember that, thanks to machine learning, this sort of software is more sophisticated than ever. Not using that potential would be a huge shame.
AI assistants are all the rage in 2019. You can use them for tedious and time-consuming tasks such as stock inventory, handling queries, and similar processes.
And let’s not forget about chatbots. They are already in wide use and they’ve proven to be essential when it comes to customer service. Again, thanks to the ability to learn from previous conversations, these bots don’t feel like bots at all. They feel like “regular humans” and can do an excellent job when it comes to handling complaints, answering questions, and catering to other customer needs.
If you need to ensure that your offers are relevant and targeted specificaly to your customer needs, contact 2buy1click Team to help you see lift in sales.
The Rise of Voice Search
We have already written about the importance and rise of Voice input technologies in eCommerce. It seems that right now, some 20% of all searches are performed by voice, and the experts predict it’s going to increase to 50% by the end of this year. With such a strong tendency for growth, it’s clear that eCommerce businesses need to introduce voice search in their shops ASAP.
However, you can’t just implement the technology for voice search and stop there. Voice search should be treated like your traditional search option, which means that some optimization efforts need to be applied. Right now, the golden rule of SEO for voice is to use longtail keywords, since voice search queries are generally longer than the typed ones. Optimizing for voice search is also a good opportunity to polish your product descriptions, since voice technology can read them out loud and you definitely want them to sounds great.
More Video, Please
Video, in general, has seen a remarkable tendency of continuous growth. Video content is widely used for a variety of marketing purposes, and with tremendous results too. Why would eCommerce be an exception?
In fact, of all industries, eCommerce should reap the most benefits from video content. Video should be used not just on the main page, where it serves a strictly promotional purpose. It should, instead, be used on product pages.
Well-produced videos that explain the product to the tiniest detail, showcasing its best features and qualities, can do wonders for sales, especially when combined with other techniques, such as influencer marketing, related products, and so on.
As you can see, this year is all about taking existing trends that have been ongoing for a few years and bringing them to a whole new level.
