The world of e-commerce is enormous. Reports show that 2019 saw a record number of buyers at 1.92 billion people. With everyone flocking to the internet, businesses everywhere are starting to take advantage.
The problem with that is you’re facing more competition than ever. You need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. If you can get in front of the newest trends in e-commerce, you can do just that.
Have you been falling behind with the newest trends in e-commerce? Below are eight e-commerce trends you need to watch out for in 2020.
1. Google Marketplace
It’s hard to compete with big companies for organic search rankings. They have enormous budgets for SEO that small businesses can’t compete with. That doesn’t mean you’re out of luck, though.
You can take advantage of Google Shopping to get your products in front of potential customers before they see the organic search results.
Most e-commerce platforms have tools that allow you to integrate all your products with the Google Shopping platform. Once you import your products, all you need to do is log into the platform and adjust your bids for search engine placement.
2. Augmented Reality
It’s hard to shop online for products that will be placed in your home. You don’t know for sure how things will look in your home after you buy your merchandise. This leads to a lot of people to return items to find something better.
Augmented reality is changing things by allowing customers to use their phones to see how a product fits into their home. All your customer needs to do is launch an application. Once they do, they can see your products in their homes.
These applications will allow you to give your customers a better experience. Expect more major brands to start incorporating augmented reality into their sales processes.
3. Social Commerce
Advertising your business on social media sites isn’t anything new. You pay for ad space and attempt to get clicks to your website. If you use influencers for your marketing plan, they will share your products in their news feeds.
The problem has always been getting someone to click through to your website. This has always been hard with influencer marketing when a social media site gives you no real way to direct people off their platform.
Things have changed now that you can sell your products directly on social media. Instead of directing consumers to your website, they can buy straight from their news feed. You can expect businesses to focus a lot of their budget on optimizing their shopping posts.
4. Chatbots for Support
People have been needed for customer support since e-commerce first started. With the advancements made in AI, things are beginning to change.
If you want to keep it simple, you can use chatbots to figure out what kind of support a customer needs. Have your chatbot ask a few questions to figure things out and send them to the right person.
If you want to get more advanced, you can train your chatbots to answer simple questions. This will free up your staff’s time to focus on essential issues that need to be solved.
As time goes on in 2020, expect the capability of chatbots to improve even more. Many businesses are even making them part of the sales process.
5. Voice Recognition
People don’t search for products and information the way they used to. Smart home products have gotten smart enough to begin getting good at recognizing voices. Consumers are starting to use this functionality to their advantage.
Expect more voice searches to happen in 2020 as a result. People will search for information and products by talking to their smartphones and smart speakers.
You can take advantage of this by optimizing your store for voice search. If you can make shopping your store easy by voice, you can get in front of these customers before your competitors get their stores ready.
6. Shift to Direct to Consumer
It takes a lot of work to put products on the shelves in stores. There are a lot of steps to get there. You have to provide an excellent wholesale offer and get a distribution network set up to fulfill your demand.
Direct to consumer offers can provide you a more sustainable business.
Instead of trying to get products into big retailers, many businesses are starting to sell directly from their own websites. Doing this allows them to skip the legwork of putting together deals with traditional retail.
7. Personalization
Consumers give away more data online than they ever have. In the past, large companies were the ones who could take advantage of that to create a personalized experience. That has changed over the past few years.
You now have the tools available that will help you create personalized experiences for your customers.
Do you have a clothing store? Make sure you fill out the sizes they picked before.
Do you run a hobby shop? You probably know the type of products your customers will like in the future.
You need to focus on giving your customers an experience that is unique to them. Everyone else is starting to do it, so personalization is starting to become expected in e-commerce.
8. Customized Products
A lot of consumers like to be unique. The problem is, it hasn’t always been easy to provide personalized products to people. Advances in manufacturing have changed that.
Expect more personized products from e-commerce stores in 2020. Your customers can pick the features they want online, and you can produce their product specifically for their needs.
Personalized products are also a great offer during holiday sales. Personalized gifts are great for special occasions.
Don’t Fall Behind on E-Commerce Trends
The world of online sales changes fast. Make sure to keep on top of the latest e-commerce trends so you can keep up with your competitors. If you don’t take advantage of the latest tools and techniques, you’re going to fall behind and start losing sales.
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