Starting and growing an eCommerce business is rewarding when done right. While brick and mortar retail is steady, it’s hard to deny that people are increasingly loving online purchases. You don’t need a fortune teller to see that or know that more retailers will swoop into the market as well.
The chances of success are increasing every year as well. That’s because eCommerce is growing at 221%.
More competition also means more trends as everyone wants to go viral. If you want to go shine, you should be willing to put in the work, know the right marketing strategies, connect with customers and know the trends.
These are the emerging B2C eCommerce trends you should pay attention to.
1. Product Landing Pages That Are Highly Geared At Conversion
Product landing pages are different from the regular product pages. This is the regular product page.
Then this is a product landing page.
These type of product pages are emerging trends for B2C eCommerce that will change things as well. They have the potential to increase conversions because they tell a more extensive story about the product.
2. Voice Search Increases By 20-Fold
41% of American adult use voice search daily, and that’s going to grow more as we move through 2019 to 2022.
Voice shopping is projected to grow to $40 billion annually by 2022 which is a 20-fold increase from the $2 billion that we saw in 2018.
Humans are relying more on machines; it’s relatively easier to talk than type. You can get through this by optimizing for voice search voice search. One way to do that is move beyond the regular keyword placement to create conversational content that’s formatted in a way that voice machines understand.
3. Augmented Reality Takes Center Stage
Whenever a business wows a customer, for example with a different and truly engaging experience, or technology, that customer wouldn’t forget it.
Everything is pointing us towards AR. From movies to games and now retail. That’s one thing that will improve the customer experience for eCommerce over brick and mortar because customers get to understand how well the product will work in their lives.
As more customers like it, more brands want to try it. Ikea, L’oreal, Pepsi have done it, and customers loved it. People have admitted to wanting to pay more for a product they try out with AR.
4. Social Platforms Will continue To Creep Into eCommerce
Social platforms are expanding. That's why viral marketing is so important. The platforms are focusing on eCommerce in ways that can allow e-commerce brands to sell more.
Look at Facebook. Over the years, the platform has been increasingly moving into the online selling space. In 2018, they filed a patent application to allow users to use AI to place orders using messenger. That’s a lot. With this functionality, we can sell without needing to have a person control orders from facebook. That’s not to add the shop on Facebook functionality.
Instagram is focused on turning Stories into a selling platform. Online shop owners are catching on as well. It seems like its only Twitter that’s lacking behind the other two. They did kill the “buy button” thing about two years ago.
5. Try-Before-Buy Giving Brick-And-Mortar Stores A Run For Their Money
If there’s one place that brick and mortar have shone over eCommerce, it’s here. Customers that prefer to shop in physical stores do it for many reasons, including the ability to test out the product before they pay for it. This allows them to be sure that they are buying the right thing and they have peace of mind because in most cases, in-store attendants can assure them that they can return products if they don’t like them.
While returns are in eCommerce, they can be much more stressful plus some brands tend to hide it in TOCs. Allowing customers to try before they buy not only bridges the eCommerce-commerce gap but also leaves customers with a peace of mind.
This idea is a trend that’s catching on. Shoppers purchase a product but choose “pay later” at checkout. Then after they receive their item, they are able to log on to the store and pay if they are satisfied or return it if they are not. This is risky for businesses, and you need to understand your business model and customers before you try it out. Nevertheless, it’s one of those trends we have to watch out for.
6. Video Content In Places That They Haven’t Been Seen Before
Video increases conversion rates by 46%. Over the years, they’ve crept into product pages. That’s still catching on, but an emerging trend is using them in hero sections and live chat.
The regular thing for hero sections is images but slowing, videos and gifs are catching on even better. Customers hardly pay attention to the hero section with regular images because they expect it to be one promotional gibberish that they would rather not waste our time on. But you can change that with a video.
That captures attention even better, and you can speak directly to customers. This is one of the good trends.
7. Split Testing Will Continue To Be Relevant
Some of the biggest eCommerce stories are as a result of using great A/B testing tricks to transform sales. That will continue to be important regardless of which part of the world you are. Test everything to find out what works best for your customers based on real data.
The number one rule that I like to go by with split or A/B testing is - continue to test without assumptions. Never assume your customers will like product landing pages over regular ones. Just because it works for a similar store doesn’t mean it will work for you. Look at this example of a product page that is aesthetically better but didn’t do well with the audience.
So don’t assume, instead of test and test continually. Build on previous tests too. Use a few variables and implement the results of the tests on your site.
8. More Storefront Apps
One thing that is becoming a trend is mobile storefront apps. It could be because many eСommerce platforms offer it as one of the core features, so the barrier to app development is lower. Or, knowing that shoppers are accustomed to dedicated storefront apps on their mobile devices.
Whatever reason it is for this trend, one thing is sure. It’s not for the big marketplaces only. Even small businesses are using storefront apps to drive sales and customer loyalty, and many more are moving with this flow.
9. Marketing Automation
This is not really a new thing, but it's worth mentioning again. To succeed in eСommerce, you have to automate many processes - just like Amazon. Email marketing and user-generated content is something that can easily be automated through software and apps.
Conclusion
Many B2C and B2B eCommerce trends that boost sales and many pull them down. Split testing is great for every store, but video content and storefront apps may not be. Don’t be too quick to try out a trend because it is a trend. Only pick one if you are sure you can provide a better customer experience while using it. Understand your customers and use ideas that they can connect with.
Author: Darren DeMatas, co-founder at Ecommerce CEO
Darren has an MBA in Internet Marketing, but hangs his hat on 10+ years of experience in the trenches.
Commentaires
I think some link or picture is missing in point no. 7 where it is mentioned - "Look at this example of a product page that is aesthetically better but didn’t do well with the audience."