ECommerce is the future of business – especially the B2C (business-to-consumer) kind. And that fact only makes the future developments in eCommerce even more exciting. In the past two decades, the online retail space has grown almost exponentially, completely transforming the retail world in the process.
Much of the advances in eCommerce have happened thanks to technology – but tech would mean nothing in and of itself if people weren’t willing to make the switch to online buying. And for a while, even though eCommerce was growing, that just wasn’t in the cards. Online purchasing was still something only young people cared about – but that would change in 2020.
The unfortunate circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic had one silver lining – the immediate and stunning growth of eCommerce. Once everyone was forced to stay home for prolonged periods, online shopping became a godsend – the best and easiest way to buy just about anything.
So, here we are – more people are shopping online than ever before. Making payments online is easier than ever, thanks to services like FedNow and Apple Pay. But what kind of stuff can we expect from the eCommerce world a few years down the line?
Rise Of Voice Search
When was the last time you used the voice-guided features on your smartphone? While most people consider voice search a gimmick, that perception is slowly changing. Google tells us that almost 30% of their global users routinely use voice search – and that number is steadily growing as voice-assisted hardware and software improve and becomes less clunky and more accurate.
Voice search will also become more critical in terms of accessibility – people with certain disabilities are already finding voice recognition to be a far more natural alternative to visual accessibility features.
In the past, brands have optimized their online presence according to SEO principles that ensure their websites are Google-friendly. In the future, this will also extend to speech queries and speech-guided virtual assistants. Expect voice search to become a far more important aspect of eCommerce.
Importance of Influencers
At the end of the day, eCommerce is all about digital marketing – and that means reaching as many members of your target audience as possible. You can only do this if you know what channels your target audience is using. And that’s something that changes over time.
For instance, influencer marketing was generally used for younger people in the past. Brands that were targeting older audiences had no need to invest in influencers. Fast forward to 2022 – and you’ve got a completely different situation.
Today, around 68% of large companies use some form of influencer marketing – because everyone trusts influencers. The days of teenage influencers making funny videos aren’t exactly gone – but now, you’ve got TikTok stars who create nothing but real estate investment content or advice about the stock market.
Some YouTubers make hundreds of millions of dollars solely on their influence and reach – making influencers a cornerstone of eCommerce marketing. And that trend is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
The Omnichannel Approach
Before the rise of smartphones, our homes had a few hubs – a desktop computer for using the Internet, a telephone landline for communication, and the TV for entertainment and content.
Today, the notion of distinct electronic hubs is gone: our TVs can do a lot of the stuff that our computers can do, and our phones can do just about everything. And tablets are something in between.
All of our devices can access the Internet in some capacity – which is why most eCommerce customers switch between two or more devices in a single day. That’s affecting the overall customer journey even today – people expect to have a seamless experience across all channels and devices.
Many brands and eCommerce stores have already realized the importance of an omnichannel approach – channel consistency clearly boosts customer engagement, increases trust, and simplifies the journey for less experienced or time-poor shoppers.
AI-Powered Personalization
Personalization has become a staple of eCommerce – people have grown accustomed to receiving hyper-targeted ads about the exact brands and products they’d be interested in. And while personalization tech is already quite advanced, deep learning and machine learning technologies will make audience targeting an even more precise process in the future.
AI technology can already process massive amounts of data in a fraction of the time it takes traditional algorithms. Soon, that kind of technology will be available to the average eCommerce brand in the form of affordable SaaS software solutions. Of course, it remains to be seen how hyper-personalization will interact with growing concerns over data privacy and people’s control over their online data.
But still, AI-powered algorithms will become increasingly crucial for eCommerce companies, whose digital marketing efforts are their primary source of leads and customers.