With the rise of technology, e-commerce has become a hugely popular and lucrative business model. With a growing number of customers shopping for everything from electronics to clothing, companies must adapt and stay on top of their game regarding online sales. The e-commerce industry is constantly evolving, and businesses that don’t keep up with the latest e-commerce trends will lose a lot of money or even become obsolete.
Marketers must keep up with the latest e-commerce trends to ensure that their business continues thriving in this highly competitive industry. Below we explained everything about online shopping trends.
Benefits of e-commerce
Let’s see some benefits to understanding more about e-commerce.
- Shop anywhere – It allows customers to shop anywhere and at any time. With a few clicks, you can order your favourite clothes or shoes and have them delivered right to your doorstep.
- Compare products easily – The Internet also makes it easier for consumers to research products and compare prices.
- Free shipping – Some e-commerce sites offer free shipping on purchases of certain amounts, so consumers can save even more money when they buy items online. This is a big benefit for customers who are on a budget.
- Much faster – Another key benefit of e-commerce is that it is much faster than traditional brick-and-mortar retail.
10 E-commerce Trends To Enhance Online Shopping In 2023
You can help your company thrive in 2023 by keeping up with these top online shopping or e-commerce trends.
- Augmented and Virtual Reality
- Live Streaming Commerce
- Chatbots – Among the most beneficial e-commerce trends
- Data-driven marketing
- Personalized shopping experience
- Sustainable e-commerce
- Mobile shopping
- Engage Customers With Video
- Subscriptions Help Retain Customers
- Voice Search
1. Augmented and Virtual Reality
Augmented and virtual reality (VR) is one of the new e-commerce trends that can provide a seamless shopping experience. With the ability to provide interactive and immersive experiences, augmented and virtual reality technology is an incredibly powerful tool for improving customer satisfaction, brand awareness, sales process efficiency, and more.
Augmented and virtual reality can help reduce product returns by offering a risk-free, try-on experience. This helps a customer decide whether a product will fit them or not before they purchase it.
This is a huge benefit for retailers because it allows them to give their customers a more personalized shopping experience. Several retail brands are already using AR in their business.
Let’s take an example of the world’s famous reputed brand Lenskart and how they implement e-commerce trends to boost their online shopping.
Lenskart uses a virtual try-on feature that allows consumers to see how their eyeglasses will look on them before they purchase them. These e-commerce companies are using AR to make sure that their products are appealing to customers. Moreover, they are also using it to improve their in-store experiences.
2. Live Streaming Commerce
Livestream shopping is a type of digital marketing that uses live video to promote products. This is one of the most effective e-commerce trends allows viewers to ask questions, communicate with the host in real-time, and see how the product works.
It also includes entertainment and is a great way to connect with consumers. Consumers often watch these live shows to find out more about a product or brand and can get answers to any concerns they have about purchasing online.
3. Chatbots – Among the most beneficial e-commerce trends
Chatbots are a great way to boost customer engagement and provide a more convenient shopping experience. They can also be programmed to recommend relevant items and offer coupon codes to customers.
When used correctly, chatbots can help a business grow by qualifying leads at the outset and expanding its reach. They also make routine tasks more efficient, freeing up human resources to work on more creative and innovative activities.
4. Data-driven marketing
Using data and analytics to drive marketing strategy, personalize messages and track the effectiveness of campaigns has become the norm for businesses of all sizes.
It’s all about making that information usable – enabling concrete actions and answering your audience’s needs.
Marketers can also use customer engagement data to provide proactive support that can help convert leads into buyers. For instance, they can monitor customer activity on apps and websites to know how engaged they are and what type of content or support will make them more interested.
While this approach is more effective as compared to other e-commerce trends, it does come with a few downsides. For instance, some consumers may not be interested in banner ads or promoted social media posts that don’t speak to their specific interests. It also requires human oversight to succeed.
5. Personalized online shopping experience
A personalized shopping experience is an effective way to keep shoppers engaged and make sure that they return to your website. This e-commerce trend involves collecting data about a customer’s preferences, tastes, and lifestyles to deliver a unique and tailor-made shopping experience.
A great retail personalization engine understands visual and non-visual cues to create a shopper profile for each visitor and delivers personalized recommendations that are relevant to their preferences. These recommendations help shoppers find products that they like and that match their current wardrobe.
For instance, Sephora offers a limited-time personal online shopping service during their busiest times of year to help customers with their holiday cosmetics needs. This strategy is an excellent example of a personalized shopping experience that helps shoppers avoid having to wait in long lines at the store. This also helps retailers lock in customers during times when they’re shopping for a specific product, which can increase sales.
6. Sustainable e-commerce
While sustainable e-commerce trends are not an entirely new trend, it continues to grow in popularity. Moreover, it is also beneficial for businesses that want to attract new customers. With more than 65-70% of US and UK shoppers trying to purchase products from sustainable brands, eCommerce sustainability businesses can expect to receive a large number of new visitors.
Moreover, sustainable e-commerce can save businesses money in the long run by reducing consumption and shipping costs. For example, using recycled packaging materials is cheaper than buying new ones, and investing in renewable energy can help you offset your carbon footprint.
7. Mobile shopping
Mobile shopping is among the most convenient e-commerce trends. This type of e-commerce allows customers to buy their favourite clothing, accessories, shoes, and groceries using smartphones or other handheld devices.
Although many e-commerce brands are still trying to figure out how to build a mobile-friendly site, it’s clear that this is the most important e-commerce trend among others that will continue to grow in 2023 and beyond. Consumers want a mobile experience that is easy to use, convenient, and helps them save time.
8. Engage Customers With Video
According to the latest stats approximately 54% of customers purchase by viewing video ads. In a competitive world where brands are increasingly using countless different marketing tactics, businesses need to stand out.
A video is a powerful e-commerce trend that can help your brand establish itself and build a strong connection with your customers. The first step in engaging your customers with video is to make sure that your business has a well-made, informative, and interesting video on your product or service.
Videos also work great on social media, as they can be used to promote a special offer or your website’s sales page. They can be used as a call-to-action that can lead to a conversion and increase your revenue.
If you’re a start-up e-commerce marketplace, you can also use videos to educate potential customers on your product or service. In addition to this, you can also use video in your email campaigns to educate your target market on the benefits of a particular product or service.
9. Use Subscriptions To Retain Your Customers
Retaining your customers not only does it ensure that you have a steady stream of revenue, but also indicates a high level of customer satisfaction.
A great example of this e-commerce trend would be a loyalty program at Amazon, which has a Prime subscription service that offers several benefits to its users including faster delivery and discounts on specific items. The company’s success relies on delivering a great experience that keeps customers coming back and purchasing more from them.
A lower churn rate is always better, and it’s essential to avoid losing more than 10% of your customers. Don’t worry! By understanding and measuring your customers’ behaviour you can easily retain all your precious customers. This includes things like web browsing, email opens, past transactional data, and demographic information.
Lastly, it is vital to have strong relationships with your customers. This includes offering them extra perks, making it easy for them to return their purchases, and offering personal service.
10. Voice Search
Voice search is one of the most rapidly growing e-commerce trends. The popularity of voice search is fueled by several factors, including convenience, speed, and ease of use. It’s also a natural complement to the mobile lifestyle that consumers lead since people tend to multitask using voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. This will help you deliver better, more targeted content to your voice search customers.
When you’re optimizing for voice search, you’ll want to focus on the words and phrases that are more likely to be used by voice assistants. These are called conversational keywords, and they’re more similar to what you’d say than they are to the traditional, keyword-based search terms you might use when doing a manual search on your computer. These days almost every online shopping website implements this e-commerce trend.
While the use of conversational words and phrases can be beneficial in attracting voice search users to your site, they also pose some challenges for your SEO strategy. For one, they often contain long-tail keywords.
Moreover, they can be hard to understand and interpret. That’s why you need to use more natural language when crafting your content for voice search, and you should aim to include as many different variations of the keyword as possible to give it the best chance of being picked up by voice assistants.
You’ll also need to remember that your customers are unlikely to know exactly what they’re looking for when they do a voice search, so you should be prepared to answer any questions they might have about the product or service you’re selling. That’s especially true if you’re offering a new or unique product line or an item that doesn’t have many images available on your website.
Ultimately, voice search is here to stay, so it’s worth taking the necessary steps now to get your e-commerce store ready for the future of retail. With the right optimization of these e-commerce trends, you can start to reap the rewards of this exciting technology in just a few years.