Trends are always changing, and it does not matter in which niche or industry you belong to. If you are not keeping up with the trends — you’re going to lag behind. Trends are the most critical issue you can keep track of across every industry out there — including eCommerce.
As we have stepped into a brand new year — we certainly could not have known that the coronavirus would come along. The COVID-19 has given us all kinds of new eCommerce trends to follow. Now the question is, what are some of the top eCommerce trends for 2020 that we are going to see, now?
1. Google is Becoming an Online Marketplace.
Gone are those days when Google is only used to be a search engine. Now the company is also becoming an online marketplace.
If your brand is not super well known, the majority of your customers are going to come to your website via paid searches or organic traffic.
Hence, to put your products in a better way in front of your customers, you should optimize your website for Google shopping.
Google Shopping is one of the powerful sales channels, and it can be a great SEO hack for online stores. By integrating your eCommerce platform with Google Shopping will create a product listing ad that will automatically top the SERPs on the shopping tab. This feature can be pretty useful for those eCommerce stores that sell niche products.
Even, according to a recent study, it is said that Google shopping helps to boost sales by over 17%.
Getting started with Google shopping is also pretty easy, and you will need to go to the Google Merchant Center to sign up, and if your online store meets the ad requirements. And then, you will be able to market your platform using that platform.
2. Influencer Marketing Will Play A Key Role.
One of the best ways to get more sales for your product is influencer marketing. Although influencer marketing is not really a new thing and it’s been in the top eCommerce trend for the last couple of years now. Also, it offers you some of the great results.
However, in case you do not know about influencer marketing, then, in this case, you will have to find a popular person in a specific niche. And ask them to promote your product.
But the question is why it works? Well, most of the customers do seek a product recommendation from influencers. Also, a study says that there are 49% of the customers who look to influencers when making product buying decisions.
Influencer marketing has a huge business on Instagram, and it is said that Instagram already has a $1.7 billion industry on Instagram. And you will often find celebrities promoting different products.
However, when it comes to product discovery, micro-influencers have a far more significant impact than celebrities. So if you are going to use Instagram to promote your product, you must think of partnering with Instagram influencers in your niche.
3. Voice Search
You should also know that there will be a growing volume of voice search. According to Loop venture forecasts, it is said that by 2025 75% of the US households will have a smart speaker. And people are highly relying on voice assistants like Google Assistants and Amazon Alexa for everything.
And as in the future, more and more households start adopting voice assistant technology and get comfortable with it. They will use it to make purchases.
So what can you do as an eCommerce owner? Well, you should optimize your eCommerce website for voice searches. Like find voice search based keywords and optimize your website using them, and you are good to go.
4. Mobile Shopping is Growing
The growth of mobile commerce is also growing rapidly. Over the years, mobile shopping growth is growing continuously. And it is said that by 2021, 73% of eCommerce sales will take place on a mobile device.
And optimizing the eCommerce experience for mobile customers can be a massive opportunity for business owners out there.
Customers nowadays just do not shop online. But before they make any purchase decision they do a lot of research, browses different products and then make their mind to purchase something. And all of these things they are doing through their smartphone only.
Also, over the years, the number of smartphone users increased a lot. And the newer generation likes to do everything through their phone only compared to the older generation.
So if you are not optimizing your website for the mobile devices, then you are losing behind. Even Google is also giving more importance to mobile than desktop. So if you are serious about SEO, then optimizing your website for mobile is the best way to go.
5. AR and VR are Becoming More Commonplace
One of the significant issues for online purchases is always that the customer cannot really see the product before purchasing it. As a result, it was always a challenge to sell things like clothing, furniture, and other accessories that users like to review before purchasing.
However, AR and VR are helping users to solve this problem by allowing customers to virtually try on products without touching them at all.
There are companies like Warby Parker that have launched an app that uses AR. So the customers can try different glasses before ordering.
Even Amazon and Ikea also use the same technology to allow shoppers to see how the furniture is going to look in their homes.
So as an eCommerce business owner, you should understand what are the technological developments happening and how you can implement them. Also, you should invest in such digitalization systems to offer your customers the best shopping experience possible.
6. Visual Commerce
One of the main difficulties of running an eCommerce store is having to sell your products to those consumers who have never interacted with your product before. And this is where visual commerce comes into place.
In this case, we will need to use consumer-generated media, interactive content, engaging videos, AR to help the customers to get as much information as possible.
This way, your customers will get enough idea of how your product is going to benefit them. How the product is actually going to look and how to use it. That’s why visual commerce is in top eCommerce trends this year.
7. Flexible Payment Options for Big Purchases
If your website is selling expensive items, then there is a high chance that new customers are most likely not to trust your business. However, to tackle this issue, you can take a bunch of steps.
Like you can introduce cash on delivery. So your customers will only pay for your product once they receive it. A Money-back guarantee is also one of the features that you can introduce.
Along with that, you can offer flexible payment options to your customers. You can do so by using services like Afterpay, Final, and Affirm. These services will automatically break down large purchases into small payments over the course of several months. As a result, it will be easy for your customers to purchase your product without spending all their money at once.
Bottom Line:
So those were some of the top eCommerce trends for 2020. No matter which trend you are going to pick, just make sure that you are implementing in such a way that it is improving the shopping experience. After all, that’s the only goal that has and once the shopping experience is better. The sales are going to come in.
