With eCommerce taking over the largest portion of most retailers’ income after the pandemic, every business must know the top eCommerce trends for the remainder of the year. Whether we go back on stay-at-home orders or life continues as it is now, businesses everywhere are going virtual and offering online more online options than ever before.
Are you in with the latest eCommerce trends? Check it out below.
Consumers are Buying on Social Media
Social media isn’t just a way to stay in touch with your friends anymore, many use it to shop too. Using built-in embedded links, you can share your products right on your social media pages, making it easy for consumers to buy your products in one fell swoop. You don’t have to worry about losing buyers along the channel because they have to navigate to another page to buy your product. When they can do it in the moment, they are more likely to follow through.
Artificial Intelligence offers Personalized Recommendations
Consumers love when they personalized recommendations based on their past purchases or even searches. AI makes that possible, allowing you to cater to your viewers’ needs giving them what they want to see and increasing your sales.
Think about how much more likely viewers are to become shoppers when they get emails and ads tailored to the things you know they’ll like. They’ll feel like you know them and have to have what it is you’re offering.
Consumers Want Environmentally Conscious Packaging
Despite the pandemic and slower shipping times, consumers still want companies to mind their packaging. Companies that advertise their minimal packaging or use of recycled products for packaging bring in another target audience that they otherwise may have lost.
Think outside of the box to eliminate or reduce waste and you may see your customer base increase for the sheer fact that you’re environmentally friendly.
Google Shopping Increases Sales
While you can’t just pay your way onto Google Shopping, you can optimize your descriptions and titles so that Google ranks you in its shopping pages.
Many shoppers today don’t want to be bothered with navigating to the store’s page, searching for a product, and then buying it and Google makes it easy. If you’ve noticed, when you search for an item in Google, it pops up with the top stores selling the item. You want to be one of those shops.
You’ll need a Google Shopping account, which you can set up by heading over to the Google Merchant Center. It’s not difficult to sign up, but like everything else on Google, you have competition, so make sure you optimize your content.
Virtual Try-On is Increasing
With fewer consumers going into stores and even if they are, they are in and out not taking time to try things on or visualize them, virtual try-on has become a major trend.
Any business can use this technology whether you sell furniture, eyeglasses, clothing, or accessories. Allowing users to see your products on themselves or in their own homes helps increase sales. They may try things they wouldn’t try in person or they may find that they love something that they were feeling wishy-washy about at first sight.
Consumers Want Payment Options
The pandemic hit millions of Americans’ pocketbooks rather hard, making it difficult to afford large purchases. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy things, but they can’t afford large investments. That’s why the increase in flexible payment options, such as Affirm or Afterpay are skyrocketing.
Setting up equal installment payments at a fraction of the original cost makes the purchase seem a lot more feasible.
Voice Search is Popular Today
With a majority of households owning a smart speaker, most people talk to their internet including order products with their voice. They don’t have time to sit at the computer, head to a website, make the order, and pay for it. With voice command shopping, everything is done for them and they can even multi-task. If there’s one thing today’s consumers are today, it’s busy so anything you can do to help streamline the purchase process, the higher your sales will be.
Chatbots are Helpful
Many consumers want help right away when they’re shopping. They don’t have the time or patience to call customer service or wait for an agent online. Chatbots offer basic information right off the bat, without any wait. Chatbots can greet customers, ask if they have any questions, and do the searching for consumers when they do have a question.
Chatbots take away the time it takes for consumers to navigate away from your products, read your FAQ or other pages, and then come back to the product. Once they navigate away, the chances of the purchase going through are slim to none, so using a chatbot may help increase your sales.
Is your business online yet? If not, it’s time to start. If the pandemic showed us anything, it’s that online businesses will succeed. Whether you had to think outside the box and change your products or services slightly to meet the demands of the pandemic or you had to get online for the first time, you’re in a great place.
Ecommerce is here to stay and if anything will continue to grow. Businesses that were already online have had to continually change to meet the consumers’ demands, and that remains true today. with each new technology, things get easier, have better features, and help businesses grow in ways they otherwise probably never would have. If you’re ready to jump on board – take advantage of these eCommerce trends today.