Businesses all over the world felt the pinch of the coronavirus pandemic this year. Many establishments had to shut down their operations either temporarily or permanently.
Despite these unfortunate events, some companies managed to flourish by discovering new opportunities in the digital realm. This led to significant changes in the shopping behaviors of consumers. It’s also paving the way for a completely different and unconventional business ecosystem.
Shopping on e-commerce stores has become a habit, and the term “e-commerce” isn’t just a business jargon anymore. Retailers who sold their products primarily online enjoyed higher sales.
The world of e-commerce, however, is constantly changing. If you want to outperform your competition and help your business expand further, you’ll need to be familiar with the key trends happening in this industry.
Here’s a look of what 2021 has in store for digital commerce:
Mobile Commerce Will Become More Dominant
As shoppers’ trust in online purchasing rises, they feel more comfortable buying stuff using their mobile phones. You should take steps to improve customer browsing and shopping experience for these users. If you built your custom online store with Shopify, for example, you’ll need to work with a Shopify website developer to make your shop user-friendly and visually pleasing for your mobile consumers.
Personalization Can Make or Break Your E-Retailer Store
Generic conversations won’t help you win customers. Instead, you should invest in developing human-powered and personalized experience in your digital commerce store.
One way to help you create personalized customer experiences in your user journey is to use a chatbot, a tool that allows your e-commerce shop to build engaging conversations with online shoppers.
You can pre-program chatbots to do the following for your business:
- Provide spot-on product choices to customers
- Deliver thoughtful and well-written responses to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- Offer links to the appropriate pages when necessary
Although chatbots are useful, they’re not perfect. When this tool is unable to answer a complex query or when human intervention becomes necessary, let your customer service team pick up the chat and engage with the online shopper.
Voice Commerce Will Become More Popular
Many are using voice assistant devices, such as Google Home with Google Assistant and Amazon Echo with Alexa, to purchase stuff online. A report from TechCrunch predicts that voice shopping will rise to more than 40 billion dollars in 2022.
Another reason behind the rise of voice commerce is the increasing convenience and accuracy of technology. Both Amazon and Google are promoting regional languages in their voice assistant devices to help shoppers buy products more conveniently.
Optimizing your e-commerce store for voice search, therefore, is necessary to keep up with this trend. Here are some ways to get your e-retail website ready for voice queries:
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- Incorporate answers to frequently asked consumer questions surrounding your market or your products. This is a simple yet effective method of getting more organic traffic from voice searches to your digital commerce store.
- Optimize your existing content to boost the chances of showing up in voice searches.
- Provide a voice-based navigation feature on your mobile app.
- Make sure that shoppers can buy your products using a voice command.
Visual Commerce Will Become More Prominent This Year
Visual commerce goes beyond the photos you use on your product pages. It also refers to the imagery you use on your whole e-retailer store to encourage visitors to engage your business and purchase a product.
You could use visual commerce to your advantage by applying these suggestions:
- Create visually pleasing shopping advertisements on Pinterest to drive website traffic and improve conversions.
- Incorporate a visual search feature on your website that enables shoppers to look for products using images.
- Create videos or 360-degree images of your top-selling products.
E-commerce companies that want to dominate the market should adopt the latest trends. Look at 2021 as an opportunity to improve the way you sell your product online.