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It is an era of the E-commerce revolution. The Ecommerce trends & dynamics are changing rapidly and online businesses are already getting crazy about it. In the article, I would like to share with you some of the new trends in E-commerce and how it is expected to change in the future. As we know E-commerce is an ever-changing business and it very well adopts the trends to optimize the customer’s online shopping experience. The e-commerce industry has changed a lot in a short period. There is no doubt that E-commerce has a lot of opportunities for businesses to access customers faster and it also helps businesses to grow rapidly. There are many online eCommerce platforms that you can use to start your e-commerce business. Magento e-commerce is the best eCommerce platform that you can use to make an advanced and stylish eCommerce website.

It is expected that by 2021, the retail sales of E-commerce will increase by $4.9 trillion. It means the growth rate of E-commerce businesses is projected to be 265%, which is insane. The eCommerce market is continuously growing and the growth has become very rapid over the past few years. The slope of global E-commerce sales is moving upwards and there are no chances of decline. The companies are using eCommerce marketing tools to raise their sales and grow their businesses. The eCommerce industry is going through both evolutionary and revolutionary phases and the digital commerce platform dynamics in the market keep changing.  Here are some of the major predictions about the eCommerce industry that would give you an idea about the future changes in the market.

Omnichannel Shopping

The businesses are fully aware of the buying behavior of their customers. Previously, you could distinguish between physical and online retail stores. Now, companies know that customers are more likely to shop from multiple channels, you can call it omnichannel eCommerce. The physical retailing stores also realized the need for eCommerce platforms, by doing this, they would not just be easily accessible to the customers, but could also build a solid brand image and effective customer relationships through an online eCommerce website.

The businesses start to realize that they cannot go along with just physical stores. The physical stores are less visible to the customers as compared with the online eCommerce stores. Most of the customers see the product online and then buy it from the online store. About 73% of customers use multiple online channels for shopping. If you are a physical store, still you need an online platform to display your product to a maximum number of customers. So, it can be said that e-commerce technology is not just limited to buying and selling your products online, but you can also use this amazing platform for marketing purposes and make your product accessible to more customers. In the future, the retailing business will be all about synchronizing between the online and offline data. In the future, multi-channel shopping will be a trend and businesses have already realized that need.

B2B E-commerce

By the year 2020, B2B ECommerce expected to double the size of B2C ECommerce. In 2021, the sales of B2B ECommerce are expected to be $1.184 trillion in the USA. One thing to consider here is that B2B businesses are more complex than B2C e-commerce because, in B2B, you have to simplify the shipping and improve the exp. After all, a sale in B2B is worth more than 100 times B2C sales. The buying process of the B2B buyers is also very different and complicated than the B2C. In the B2B, the buyer has to go through negotiations, approvals, sales interactions, etc. For the B2B business, it is very important to personalize their access to the customers. It is expected that shortly B2B businesses will use ECommerce personalization features to effectively deal with their clients.

Most B2B businesses are using customized orders, dynamic pricing, and digitized line sheets that rank reordering to make the customer’s online experience better by using effective B2B eCommerce solutions. Dynamic content technology is the future of the eCommerce marketplace that is more effective in creating content and branding the products of any eCommerce business depending on the specific needs of one customer. Many businesses are also using the chatbots on their site for better communication with the customers. As we know after the quality of the product, it is the online content that helps you to stand out from the competition. Content marketing is expected to be more advanced and companies are now more focused on creating content for every phase of sales funnels such as the awareness stage, consideration stage, and decision stage.

It is estimated, that in the eCommerce B2B business individuals are likely to use around 6 channels to access any product. The omnichannel strategy is the next initiative of many companies and many of the companies have already started using an omnichannel strategy to access more customers. Around 61% of B2B companies will start using an omnichannel strategy in the future.

E-commerce Personalization

This year proves to be the year of eCommerce personalization, where a huge number of businesses have started following this trend. The personalization has a huge impact on the eCommerce online shopping experience. The customer’s overall standards for personalization also increase because 33% of the customers do not buy from you if you are not providing enough personalization features. ECommerce personalization is a good tool to build effective relationships with customers. One thing you must remember is that time personalization is not just limited to remembering the names of customers and sending them personalized emails, but the businesses gather a piece of detailed information about their customers to create their persona, it helps the businesses to personalize the shopping experience of the customers depending on their preferences and interests.

There are many ways to implement personalization in your business. Many companies also put cart recommendations on their eCommerce website.  Once the customer adds items to the cart, the related product will be displayed on his account. You can say that when it comes to eCommerce businesses, it is a complete science, where you have to understand your customers and their shopping behavior to provide the best-personalized shopping experience to them.

Voice E-commerce

One of the recent trends in the eCommerce industry is the voice eCommerce technology, you can also call it V-Commerce. There are many voice devices such as Google Home, Amazon Echo, etc. The use of voice technology is expected to increase in the future which would allow the customers to build better communication with the brands through their voice interactions. Any internet activity, whether it is browsing, buying, or selling, is done by using your voice, which is the voice technology tool. For searching a particular item on the website, you just have to call its name, rather than typing it in the search bar. The customers have already started using voice technology for browsing the data. It is predicted that in the US, around $40 billion in sales will be generated with voice technology. Voice eCommerce is expected to raise sales to $40 billion. The Amazon eCommerce platform has been using voice technology since 2016 and it is one of the first movers of this new technology.   

In the case of AI, the computer can individually recognize your voice and it can also save the history of customer interaction to better understand their concerns. So, you can say that in the next 5 years, V-Commerce will change the whole customers’ interaction with the brand and it will also make the shopping experience of customers more effective.

New Payment Methods

When it comes to shopping online, the payment method can have a huge impact on the customers’ decision to buy. Businesses need to make payment methods more flexible and provide their customers with many options to make a transaction. So, when you are doing online business, you should understand the demand of buyers and the payment methods that they are more likely to use. No matter, how good your products are or how well you have done the branding of your business, if your buyers are not comfortable with the payment method, they will not buy anything from you.

There are many new payment methods such as PayPal, Google Pay, Samsung, or Apple Pay used by many companies. These are all digital services to transfer the money that allows the customers to have a smooth online shopping experience. Social payment options are also trending in eCommerce platforms that would help you sell more products using your social media accounts. No doubt, social media is an amazing platform to improve your online product sales. In the future, digital payment options are going to alter the cash and cards. Around 70% of the people are expected to shift from cash and credit to digital transaction methods by 2030.

You might have heard about cryptocurrency; it is going to revolutionize the future payments of the eCommerce platform. There are many large companies already using the cryptocurrency as a method of payment. The Shapeshift and Overstock partnered which allows the Shapeshift to permit its customers more cryptocurrency payment options.

Social payment options are also trending in the eCommerce platforms to provide a seamless experience to their clients. Using social media payment options, customers can easily transfer funds. All major social platforms have their payment options for customers. Some of the major social media payment options are Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Twitter Buy, Facebook Pay, etc. Although social media is an effective way to transfer money it also has some deficiencies. Here, you are always at threat by the hacker, especially if you are using social media for online payment, your loss would be higher.

The social media methods of payment are still very famous for their seamless experience and it is also expected to be in demand for the next 5 years.

Trending Social Media Shopping

As we all know the trends of social media shopping are increasing rapidly. Most of the businesses are using social media platforms to sell their products online. Social media is also a good medium for the marketing and branding of the products. There is no doubt that shopping on social media is very convenient and easy. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are some of the most famous social media mediums, where you can find the buy button to make a purchase. Instagram is one of the finest platforms to sell your products and it also introduces shoppable post options to individuals, who want to sell products online.  

Now, social media shopping has cut the time, effort, and cost of selling products for many new businesses. Here, you don’t have to invest a lot of money to start a business. Have you heard about the “Better Coupon Box”? It is a powerhouse feature used to increase followers on social media. Using this option, you can allow your visitors to have some discount on specific brands of your products. 

So, social media eCommerce is expected to increase in the future because it has a lot of opportunities for the business to grow and have access to more customers.

M-Commerce Emerges

The mobile phone is an essential part of everyone’s life. You can use your mobile to get any information online, communicate with people, learn something, book a car, order food, and buy anything you want from house to socks. The businesses know that the best way to access their customers is through mobile phones. In the next 5 years, there will be an emergence of the mobile commerce industry by using different types of smart technologies such as AI, VR, and IoT. For shoppers, using mobile phones is more convenient for online shopping. The coming business strategies are more focused on the mobile phone because the majority of people use mobiles to buy something on the internet. 

The mobile phone is an effective tool for personalized marketing for users. Businesses can send notifications to users anytime on their mobile through app notifications or a text message on their phones. The next couple of years will be a game-changer for the use of mobile on the eCommerce. Today, m-commerce goes side-by-side with e-commerce and it is becoming the main attraction for many businesses. In 2017, it was evaluated that around 34.5% of eCommerce sales were generated through M-commerce. Till 2021, M-commerce sales are expected to rise by 54%. The eCommerce businesses now prefer to create an app for their online platform, to make their products more accessible to the customers. With mobile devices, customers can buy anytime, anytime, anywhere.

In the next five years, there are many new technologies expected to change the entire M-commerce. The first technology is known as Augmented reality, it will improve the online shopping experience of your customers. This technology will allow you to get an exact image of the product in your mind. It is a good technology to engage more customers on your mobile devices.

 The other innovation expected to be implemented in m-commerce is messenger apps and Chatbots. The chatbots would allow you to have more effective and direct communication with your customers. These mobile technologies would help you to enhance the customers’ online buying experience and you can build better relationships with your customers.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is expected to be a big game-changer for eCommerce in the next five years. It will not only change the eCommerce dynamics but the overall customer experience on the eCommerce platform would also change. In the coming years, the inventory and supply chain tasks are expected to be controlled by robots and smart machines. You can say that the use of artificial intelligence in eCommerce would change the workforce in the eCommerce warehouses. The use of smart machines at eCommerce warehouses will save a lot of time because machines are faster than humans and they have no issue doing overtime.

The chatbots used for communicating with the customers will be operated by the robots. The AI chatbots are an intelligent system that learns from human conversation and it also allows them to assist better and make the experience of customers more personalized. Robots in eCommerce would control all inventory and supply chain tasks. The AI assistants can manage many tasks simultaneously such as inventory management and handling inquiries. So, it can be said that the AI assistants with make customer service more personalized and effective which would also allow the businesses to build trustful relationships with the customers.

On some of the eCommerce websites, you can find the chatbots for interacting with the customers. If you are an eCommerce business owner, you can also add chatbots on your website using any online chatbot eCommerce tools such as HubSpot’s Chatbot Builder is a free online tool to build your chatbot on your website.

IoT-Commerce

The Internet of Things or IoT is becoming a hot topic because it is being used in many home appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, and kitchens. The IoT proves to be an amazing technology that has made every task easier. When it comes to worldwide retail and eCommerce sales, the top eCommerce platforms are finding ways to effectively implement this amazing technology in the eCommerce businesses to optimize the online customer’s experience and change their shopping behavior.

The IoT technology can help the eCommerce companies in managing their inventories. For example, in many eCommerce businesses, customers complain about out-of-stock items. The IoT devices linked with your inventory will send you notifications anytime some item gets out of stock, the IoT can also automatically buy some items if you are running short of it. It will minimize your inventory management efforts and reduce staff responsibilities. Internet of Things is going to be a big thing in the e-commerce industry.

As we all know Amazon is a big player in the online retaining market, it has integrated the Amazon Dash Button on its online store that makes sure that you have all of your everyday essentials with you. So, you can say that IoT devices have a lot of potential to change the eCommerce business processing, and in the future, it would have a huge impact on the customer’s shopping experience.

Renewal of Brick-And-Mortar Models

Brick-And-Mortar is an old model that most businesses stopped using after 2007. The main reason for the backlash of the Brick-And-Mortar model was the arrival of eCommerce businesses. Now things have started changing again.  The Brick-And-Mortar model will provide an in-person online experience to the customers, without holding any inventory.

The perfect example of the Brick-And-Mortar model is the real estate industry, where the contractor just shows the virtual images of the houses or any other property without actually showing the house to the Many showrooms are usiMany showrooms are using the showrooms, the retailers show the virtual images and videos of the cars rather than holding the cars inventory at the place. Businesses are now using virtual reality apps to digitally dealing with customers and it also allows the customers to save their time.

VR Products Visualization

The use of VR is growing in different industries including the eCommerce retail business, as it allows customers to have a more realistic experience of their online eCommerce shop. The VR improves the digital shopping experience of the customers. When the customers put the virtual reality gadget is on their face, he/she can feel like standing in a physical store and view the products as they are there. The main purpose of VR is to make the digital shopping experience of customers closer to reality. The more real the customers’ experience would be, the more likely is for the customer to visit you again. Virtual reality product’s display will improve customers’ online shopping experience

Just like VR, AR is also a good tool to enhance the customer’s visualization of the product. IKEA is one of the best eCommerce platforms, which launched an app called AR catalog app. This app helps the customers to see how some item of furniture looks in their house. So, you can say that VR and AR are big players in the future that will entirely change the online shopping experience of customers. 

ROPO Will Increase

No matter you are an online eCommerce store or a physical store, you must have an online platform to access your customers and put up information about your product. Many online businesses have realized this and made their online websites or eCommerce platform to be more visible to customers. ROPO is the shopping behavior of customers, which means researching online purchases offline. Most of the customers see the product online and after getting its information they buy it at the physical retail store. Usually midway between online and offline shopping and it is going to be in trend in the future also. 

The reason why customers use the technique ROPO to buy any product is that the competition in the market is very high and prices for each company are quite different from each other, so the customers have to do online research to find the most reasonable and appropriate products out of all options. For example, they look for CRM, mobile payments, geolocation tracking, prices, and reviews. The ROPO also benefited the retailing businesses because now they can do personalized marketing for each customer and effectively brand their product. Many retailers build the customer’s profits by getting their data and then using this data for the personalization of the customer’s services. 

Use of Blockchain

The blockchain market is not so big yet, but from the future point of view, this technology is very promising. Some of the online stores are already using blockchain technologies such as OpenBazaar. OpenBazaar is one of the best enterprise eCommerce solutions for building online stores that allow its customers to make their online transactions through cryptocurrencies. You can make your retailing store on this platform free- of- cost and without the need for any programming and coding. Blockchain will be a part of e-commerce businesses in the coming years.

The Blockchain is one of the fastest-growing eCommerce industries. The fastest-growing eCommerce industries. Opentually uses the ‘proof of work’ model for money transactions over the Internet. In simple words, you can say that there is no mediator between buyer and seller. I have seen a rise in blockchain-based eCommerce platforms. The blockchain belongs to the cryptocurrency payment method and in the future, it has a lot of scope in the eCommerce industry.

Conclusion

The dynamics of the electronic commerce industry are continuously changing depending on the customer’s demand and shopping behaviors. In this article, I have shared with you some of the eCommerce dynamics expected to trend in the next five years. E-commerce has a lot of opportunities for companies to access their customers quicker and it helps businesses to grow fast. The physical stores realized the need for online eCommerce platforms, so, they can easily access their customers, build a solid brand image, and build customer relationships through online eCommerce companies need to offer payment methods more flexibly and provide customers with many options to make a transaction. 

The coming business trends are a focus on mobile technology because people use mobiles to buy on the internet. The mobile technology would also help you to enhance the customer’s online experience and you can build better relationships with customers. The smart machines used in the eCommerce warehouses will save a lot of time consumed to do the work manually. The IoT devices are also the most trending technologies that have a lot of potential to modify eCommerce business operations in the future. So, I must say that a lot of change is going to take place in the eCommerce industry in the coming future. The business needs to adopt new technology to cope with the changing marketplace.