How Will Ecommerce Platforms Evolve in the Future?

While it's hard to predict what ecommerce platforms will look like in the next 3-5 years, there are some unquestionable technology trends that give an insight into the future of ecommerce platforms and carts.

#1 Ecommerce automation

Ecommerce automation is an emerging trend firstly introduced by Shopify inside the Shopify Plus plan. Currently, ecommerce automation is represented as a standalone feature Shopify and Launchpad though ignored by most of the major ecommerce giants.

Shopify and Launchpad allow for automating repetitive tasks related to products, orders, customer management, promotions, and even back-office humdrum tasks. Store owners create the scripts for interactions within the platform and set the outputs for each interaction. For instance, you can tag each client that made a $100 purchase a VIP client by default ‒ and it'll take several minutes to set up.

Still, ecommerce automation is confused with marketing automation, though these concepts are different.

#2 Curated shopping

The curated shopping experience is another part of the ecommerce platforms revolution. It's expected that ecommerce platforms will leverage such modern technologies like the machine and deep learning, artificial intelligence, predictive analysis, and AI to offer contextually relevant products to customers. Personalized, or curated shopping will heavily rely on these technologies to literally sell the right products to the right people at the right time.

Amazon has leveraged artificial intelligence to introduce subscription and reorder features that'll offer curated shopping experiences based on previous shopping behavior.

#3 Voice search paired up with personalized suggestions

Voice search paired up with digital assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant is a promising trend that'll enhance customer experience and become a part of predictive commerce. Just imagine a customer asking Alexa buy some shaving foam and getting a reminder to buy some razors as well. Digital assistants will make the whole purchasing process faster (no need to manually surf for goods) and more deliberate.

Image source: RubyGarage

Here's where Amazon comes into play and shapes the market. Amazon's Alexa orders items for Amazon stores while money is automatically charged from a customer's credit card. Making orders that easy, digital assistants seem like a promising future for ecommerce business.

#4 Digital wallets

Common usage of digital wallets is caused by the rapid growth of mobile commerce (m-commerce) infrastructure and shift towards mobile shopping. Mobile shopping implies on-the-go shopping experience without tangled and cumbersome checkouts and digital wallets solve exactly this problem.

Digital wallets enable one-click electronic transactions, so a customer doesn't need to enter credit card details each time to make a purchase. With digital wallets like Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Android Pay, PayPal One-Touch, and Visa Checkout, customers are able not only perform safe transactions online but in brick-and-mortar stores as well.

The benefit of digital wallets is that they efficiently ease the checkout process, making it frictionless, faster, and more secure. For instance, Apple Pay leverages biometric data to perform transactions with no physical card involved. As a result, payments by Apple Pay are less likely to subject to frauds and credit card number stealing.

Global companies join the trend. For example, Singapore Airlines have claimed the launch of blockchain-based digital wallet for frequent flyers that use a loyalty program.

Are you ready for ecommerce revolution?

The future of ecommerce is undoubtedly going to be full of exciting changes and innovations for both companies and customers.

No matter you’re an entrepreneur, or you’re working at an ecommerce company yourself, it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse when it comes to changes in the ecommerce landscape so that you can upbeat your competitors.