Top E-Commerce Trends In 2021
For many of us, the year 2020 has been difficult. At the same time, e-commerce has evolved like never before. The pandemic has intensely transformed global trends. So, what can we expect from 2021? Here are the top 8 eCommerce trends to watch out for in 2021. We also included some suggestions for you as an e-Tailer to grow your business.
- Customers Will Rely More on Voice Assistant Devices
People will be more dependent on voice assistant applications such as Alexa and Google Assistant to do most tasks.
What you can do:
- To increase your chances of featuring in voice searches, optimize your content.
- Incorporate voice-based navigation on your website.
- Ensure customers can easily buy your products with a simple voice command.
- Number of Omnichannel Customers Will Increase
Omni-channel retail focuses on delivering a consistent consumer experience, whether the customer purchases online or from a brick-and-mortar store. With the rise in popularity in adopting mobile devices and voice assistants, omnichannel customers are more likely to increase in 2021.
What you can do:
- Offer customers various choices when purchasing the products.
- Improve your website for mobile devices.
- Develop a mobile application or a Progressive Web App (PWA).
- Design personalized user experiences using tools such as SAP Commerce Cloud.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and Augmented reality (AR) Will Improve the Customer Experience
It has been predicted that, by 2022, e-Tailers will spend $7.3 billion on AI, and 120,000 stores will be using AR. AI provides personalized guidance and recommendations to customers using their purchase history and browsing behavior. AR lets customers see how a certain product would look on them even before buying the product.
What you can do:
- Incorporate AI and AR in your eCommerce store.
- There Will Be New Payment Options
If you don’t provide your customers’ preferred payment method, they will not buy from your store. Apart from debit and credit cards, most eCommerce businesses accept digital wallets (e.g., Google Pay, PayPal). In 2021, more eCommerce businesses will start accepting cryptocurrencies for transactions as they have low transaction fees and no reverse transactions.
What you can do:
- Accept Bitcoin payments.
- More Businesses Will Use Dynamic Pricing
E-tailers will continue to adopt dynamic pricing to stay competitive and attract more customers.
What you can do.
- To decide the best cost for your goods, use dynamic pricing software. These tools provide real-time insights into the costs, consumer demand, and perceived value of your goods from your competitors.
- More Customers Will Use Their Phones to Make Purchases
Nowadays, customers feel more comfortable making purchases using their mobile devices. By the end of 2021, almost 73 percent of total e-commerce revenues are expected to be produced by mobile devices.
What you can do:
- Test your website for mobile-friendliness using Google Mobile-Friendly Test.
- Develop a PWA for your online store.
- Incorporate accelerated mobile pages (AMP) for customers to visit your website with smartphones.
- Improve the checkout process.
- Test your mobile site manually.
- Brands That Advocate Sustainability Will Continue to Rise in Popularity
These days most popular brands have also begun working to adopt more sustainable business practices. For instance, Amazon, the world’s leading e-commerce company, vowed to bring its carbon emissions to zero by 2040.
What you can do:
- Decide about how you can contribute to the environment.
- Inform the customers what you do to improve sustainability.
- Switch to eco-friendly packaging.
- Instead of paper slips, send receipts via email.
- Reduce energy consumption in your factory as much as possible.
- Look for eco-friendly alternatives to existing products.
- Add new products that encourage sustainability.
- There Will Be an Increase in Visual Commerce
Visual commerce applies not only to the use of graphics on product pages but also to the entire store to attract consumers. For instance, major retailers such as Bose are now using visual commerce to connect more with the customers.
What you can do:
- To improve quality and loading speed, change your default items from JPG to JPEG2000 or WebP formats.
- For your top-selling items, create 360-degree images or videos.
- Allow customers to search for items using images by investing in a visual search tool.
- Use past user-generated content to generate customer interests.
- Using platforms like Pinterest, create visual shopping ads.
Final Verdict
E-Tailers who aim to conquer the market must follow and adopt these new trends as soon as possible. We firmly believe that this piece of writing will help you to get more exposure to your brand, drive more traffic to your store, and transform that traffic into buying customers.