Choosing to go Shopping online is no more considered as a trend; rather it has become the part of the lifestyle. People find it quite easy and convenient to place order for anything sold out in the market and get it delivered at their doorstep without much hassle. To make the best out of this lifestyle opportunity, many physical stores and retailers have come forward and embraced the offerings of eCommerce development services.
New rules have been set and it is getting better with each passing day to meet the competition in the market. The online shopping market is evolving greatly based on the advancements in the world of technology. The customer expectations are higher and to match that websites are getting smarter. To ensure it happens, new eCommerce trends are accepted by the online stores.
Some of such trends which we will see getting implemented now and yes, in the future are:
Personalization
People look for customized experiences which go with their tastes. In case of online shopping there are no real sales associates to take care of the customer needs and to reach out to them when needed. This is where technology needs to take the quick step and come forward.
Personalization is said to be implemented in a number of ways. Companies are trying to look for options that are available and get products from different sources. They are trying to analyse and understand the likes and dislikes of the customers and offer more of the kind of products that will please them all the while pulling the ones which are of lesser value.
To make sure personalization is done better companies are now trying to inculcate machine learning and artificial intelligence into the eCommerce shopping experience.
Augmented Reality
This is one of the prominent eCommerce trends 2019 has come up with. Augmented reality can be coined as a technology which is trying to include graphics and digital images to the current environment. Most of us understand this from what we see and experience in video games but today they have found their way up into online shopping.
Some of the product companies like one selling furniture, has come up with a feature which makes use of AR to help their customers visualize the furniture in their own space. All that they have to do is to look into the space through the camera on their mobile phones and they will get an idea instantly. So for the buyers, they will have a better idea about how the products will really look in their space before they actually spend some money which means that there will not be any grumpy customers trying to get rid of the furniture because of short sightedness.
Chatbots
The companies are now working on to offer better shopping experience to the shoppers just like they will have at the physical stores by introducing virtual assistants as Chatbots. For the brands, Chatbots act as some valuable asset which can help them cope up with the benefits offered by physical assistants in real life. The main aim behind implementing Chatbots is to build a communication between the company and customers.
In case of online stores, shoppers can visit the website any time and so by having Chatbots in place, it will become possible to have uninterrupted conversation without being time bound.
Instead of having real people to hear out the customers, using Chatbots can be a better option. Using chatbots it is possible to reply to customer queries instantly.
It is possible to offer different services using different Chatbots. Some can be used to offer suggestions, some to answer questions, some may show you how the product works and others will help you with checkout process. It has been said that by 2020 majority of the online businesses will be having Chatbot service implemented and if we look at the consumer side, there are many who wants to see Chatbots in their favorite brands.
Related : AI Chatbots: Future of Customer Service and Support
Cryptocurrency Payments
It has been rumored that cryptocurrency has been accepted as a mode of payment recently by Amazon. If this happens then there will be complete shuffle in the eCommerce world. Some of these projects are concentrated over offering person to person commerce possibilities by using unique tokens but, to set new standards in this field, you need giants.
Social Media Shopping
Today Social Media has turned out to be a part of online shopping and mobile devices play a role in it. Instagram and Facebook has come up with eCommerce marketplace which is opened for people and thus made shopping an easy affair for the ones who makes use of social media platforms regularly.
If we just look at one of the features of Instagram, it is focused on helping people to tag products and its price details in posts. Apart from the shoppers, today retailers and companies are also making use of such platforms to easily advertise their brand and yes, products. So if a company has no social media accounts these days, it can be said that they fall a step behind in everything. With more number of people spending hours to go through the feeds on social media having an account is a win-win thing.
On social media, if a company is not shelling out any money in terms of advertising, they will still make it to the way through their social media accounts. They will get the exposure and a platform to interact with the visitors.
Automated Checkout
Automated checkout is another thing that comes through mobile commerce and some of such options are Apple Pay, PayPal and Amazon Pay. A good number of online sites have made it a point to include them in their site so as to make the shopping experience easy for the shoppers. iPhone users can easily start shopping just by entering their credit card information once when using Apple Pay. Then for all the further shopping the information will be saved on the phone. So if your shopping site offers Apple Pay option, you can just complete the checkout just like snapping the fingers. Online shopping can become quite easy if the checkout process is simplified. This is something that you should discuss with your eCommerce development company.
Conclusion
It is not easy for the online retailers to resist themselves and not making use of these trending technology treats. With proper personalization of the online shopping sites, retailers will be able to offer personalized shopping experience and the customers will find it easy as they will be recognized by the store. Applying trends can seem to be overwhelming but when done right and in a systematic manner, it can definitely give results.
