The eCommerce world becoming competitive with each passing day, you need to monitor the trends to stay ahead of the competition. No matter how old your eCommerce business is, keeping with the trends is what matters the most. Sticking, improving and expanding this online business model has become more important than switching from an offline one.

Leveraging the latest technologies is one of the best ways to provide your customers with new experiences and provide added value to attract them. Paying attention to the on-going trends in this competitive eCommerce world has become extremely necessary to keep going ahead successfully. So, analyse and adopt the eCommerce trends in a timely way.

Here are some important eCommerce trends for this year:

• Mobile devices will matter more for brands as well as consumers

Undeniably, mobile devices play an important role in generating traffic. In fact, a great percentage of eCommerce purchases are made using mobile devices. As mobile users spend less time on a website and view fewer web pages during one session, it’s important to provide a great website experience. If the percentage of bounce rate is higher in your case, make sure to set goals to make better your website experience.

• Future of eCommerce due to COVID-19

There is no denying the fact that COVID-19 has provided one of the biggest impacts on eCommerce business. Governments throughout the world imposed lockdowns and shut down stores to restrict social movements and combat with novel coronavirus. Now, though most of the countries lifted the lockdowns and going with the flow, more people are using online platforms to purchase different items. According to prediction of the experts, the impact of COVID-19 will not provide a short-term boost to online; it’s going to stay even after this pandemic.

The benefits of contactless payments as well as the convenience of purchasing items from the comfort of their homes are likely to make a behavioural change towards online purchases.

• Growth in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The growth of AI has moved at a rapid pace from the time of its inception. The presence of AI can be noticed in every area of an eCommerce business. From recommendation engine to voice search and hyper-personalisation, AI is almost present everywhere. It enables a business to provide its users the exact content they are looking for, making it a powerful tool for customers. Searching products to placing orders through voice-assistant has become hassle-free for the customers.

• Augmented Reality (AR) making better online shopping

One of the main concerns that people go through while doing online shopping is the inability to see the products firsthand. For eCommerce brands, AR has become a game changer as it changes the way that online shoppers perceive the products they are intending to buy. For better online experience, offering personalised experience is one of the key factors. With the help of AR, companies are not only making better customer experience but also offers users the platform to explore and test products which they experiences while doing offline shopping.

• Using user-generated content on social media platforms

Using user-generated content on social media platforms can offer great benefits to brands while doing social media campaigns. The feedback, videos or photos that users share about your brand can provide engaging and unique content. Such content offers brand’s authenticity as it lets your potential customers see how general people are actually using your products and providing real review of the products they are using. Such content provides a boost to the purchasing decisions.

• Personalised shopping experience

Offering your customers a personalised shopping experience helps in building a connection between your customers and your brand. It simplifies the whole scenario of online shopping. Based on customers’ browsing history and previous shopping experiences, you can offer personalised product recommendations through email along with some exclusive offers. For the returning customers, you can display the customer’s size of the products that are on the product pages. It makes it easier for a customer to determine that the product he/she is interested in is available in his/her size. You can use different ways to provide your customers a personalised experience and make better your sale.

• Product delivery to become faster

People, nowadays just can’t wait more to receive the products they have ordered. eCommerce brands are definitely feeling the pressure of making faster deliveries. Though there are numerous factors that are responsible for faster delivery such as location of the consumer, time of order placement, stock in inventory, location of warehouse etc., making the delivery as fast as possible can help in making your customers buy from you again and again.

• Rise in shopping at the command of voice

The rise is shopping at the command of voice is definitely going to be higher this year. People are becoming more accustomed to searching things by giving voice commands rather than typing the name of the product or items they are looking for. With the increase in adoption of voice assistant devices, voice assistants are definitely going to be the game-changer in determining the sales rate of an eCommerce business.