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E-commerce trends that you should look out for.
With the ever-changing growth in the customer's preferences, businesses need to forecast in advance the needs of the future customer.
This is a user generated content for MyStory, a YourStory initiative to enable its community to contribute and have their voices heard. The views and writings here reflect that of the author and not of YourStory.
The E-commerce industry is escalating at an unprecedented rate and shows no sign of ceasing. In references to the statista report, the global e-commerce sales are expected to rise by 246.51% by 2021, from 1.3 trillion in 2013 to 4.5 trillion marks in 2021.
This exponential growth in the e-commerce sector forced the e-commerce giants, as well as low key businesses to think in a new dimension and to know the need of the hour in the coming days. Thus there are certain 'must do' terms in e-commerce that every business should adopt or align with respect to their vertical.
Growth hacking
It can be said that growth hacking is a process of growing a business as its ultimate goal. To find a measurable, achievable and scalable process to grow a business is what a growth hacker does. His true north lies in growing a business. This term was first phrased by Sean Ellis in 2015, in order to find a replacement. This trend in e-commerce is considered to be one of the most important concepts in the current scenario. For startups that are in the early stages of their business process find it as an important tool to grow exponentially or fall. Growth hacking examples like Facebook, Airbnb or Uber had one thing in common; that is a defined metric. Like Facebook counted the number of visitors, Uber counted the number of rides in a day etc.
O2O Commerce (Online-to-Offline)-
By the end of the year, the global e-commerce sales to hit around 3 trillion marks, still online retail market represent a share of 11.2 % of it.
It is a business strategy to bring out the potential customers to brick and mortar locations. In a recent study, It was found out that 81% of the shoppers conduct an online research in order to purchase a product. This stats cannot be ignored easily. Thus many e-commerce giants are focusing more on providing 'click and collect' tactics. It enables users to get instant gratification and help them If there is any problem during the process. According to Brender Witcher, "Many customers want to have an experience that allows them to hold and touch the product and in some cases, try a product." In order to capture the online market, e-commerce giants like Alibaba and Amazon, need to provide that essence of the real-life experience in providing products to the customer. O2O commerce examples include Bonobos, UberRush etc.
Augmented reality
Augmented reality is changing the way we see the world. From high-level graphics to walking down the map over the screen, AR has taken over the displays. Informative graphics with parallel voice coinciding with the display is the latest apt-in technology in small screens like mobile and tablets. From couches to anything that can be sold, consumers will be able to see the product at wide angles and differentiate it with the help of AR. Not only this allows the consumer to view the product's image in physical structure right in front of them, but it also ends the need to go to mortar and bricks to actually research about the product. IKEA place has introduced augmented reality into their products display. It lets consumer experiences, and product experiments with IKEA products into any space. Products are available for consumers in 3D and true to scale, to see whether the furniture or accessories will fit at the place consumer wants and what would it look like in context.
Machine learning and AI- With both the terms used subsequently, AI is the creation of expert systems that combines machines with human learning. machine learning on other hand is a subset of AI that trains a machine how to learn.
when technology meets human
AI and machine learning with cover 40% of digital transformation initiatives by 2019, as suggested by IDC. It creates an ideal customer experience as businesses already have the data it requires to satisfy the customers need. With behemoths like Amazon, who took it to another level by introducing Echo and Kindle devices which uses machine learning to personalize user preferences to attain product details, their reviews about the product, past purchases etc. Apple, with the introduction of Siri in 2011 in iPhone 4s, created a blistering sales in its version.
As Eddie Machaalani, co-founder and CEO of Bigcommerce Stated - 'Because of the increased use of social media on smartphones and social media 's involvement in retail sales , "social selling"has become red hot. Anyone hoping to improve their online sales must take advantage of the emerging trends.'
These are the some of the trends following up in e-commerce that has changed the world at large.