With so many retailers switching to or augmenting their ecommerce offerings in response to the pandemic, the marketplace is more competitive and crowded than ever. In 2022, consumers can choose who to engage with and who to buy from online.
Interestingly, because so many consumers are used to shopping via this model, more
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1. Personalization is King
of them are willing to share their data. Forward-thinking ecommerce retailers that analyze their data, hyper-personalize their products, and outreach these efforts will be the ones in the winners’ circle in 2022.
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2. The Rise and Rise of Chatbots
Let’s face it – people have a limited attention span and limited patience when browsing online. If consumers need more information about a product they’re interested in, you have a golden—yet limited—window of opportunity to answer their questions and secure the sale.Here’s where the role of chatbots becomes amplified.
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2. The Rise and Rise of Chatbots
While these virtual agents aren’t altogether new, technological advances in artificial intelligence have turned them into a forceful customer relationship management (CRM) tool in recent years.
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3. Augmented and Virtual Reality
Augmented reality and virtual reality solve buyers’ most obvious online shopping problems. How do they know that what they buy will look like it does in the ecommerce store when it arrives at their door? Having a non-static, three-dimensional preview of products gives shoppers a greater level of confidence that they’ll be pleased when they
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3. Augmented and Virtual Reality
finally get their hands on their goods.
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4. Voice is Cool Again
Like chatbots, virtual assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri have been around for years.But the intersection of voice-enabled virtual assistants and ecommerce is set to explode in the year ahead. The number of voice shoppers is expected to increase by 55%, reaching a value of $40 billion by 2022.If you’re an ecommerce
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4. Voice is Cool Again
business owner, look at ways to integrate this channel into your CRM and marketing strategies. Do this by leveraging a voice-search-optimization strategy to ensure that your products and services rank for keywords and phrases suited to voice-search shopper queries.
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5. The Green Brigade
According to the Harvard Business Review, 65% of consumers want to buy products from brands that demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainable business practices.We foresee ecommerce players that showcase their focus on environmentally sound practices dominating their market in the year ahead.
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6. Flexible Payment Options
There’s nothing worse than getting to your checkout cart to pay for your online shopping spree only to find that the ecommerce site doesn’t accept your preferred payment method. For retailers, the worst-case outcome of such an event is that consumers abandon their carts. To minimize the chances of this happening to you, look
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6. Flexible Payment Options
to diversify the way people can pay for goods in your store—particularly if you currently only offer check or credit/debit card options.
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7. The New Face of Fulfillment
The pandemic resulted in standard methods of delivery and fulfillment being fundamentally upended. This trend shows no sign of slowing; many consumers have come to enjoy the added flexibility of having a range of fulfillment options to choose from.Today, many stores have secure locations in malls or other public places with lockers that
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7. The New Face of Fulfillment
online shoppers can visit at their convenience to collect the items they’ve purchased.
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8. Customer Privacy Moves Front and Center
New and beefed-up regulations regarding what retailers are and aren’t allowed to do with their customer data—and with whom they share it—are issues that no ecommerce provider can afford to ignore.The consequences of falling foul of these compliance rules can be grave, including hefty fines and reputational damage. So, do your homework and
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8. Customer Privacy Moves Front and Center
make sure you remain compliant with the regulations that affect your country and industry.
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9. The Rebound of the “Mom-and-Pop Shop.”
Perhaps due to consumers’ desire to support those smaller businesses that managed to survive the pandemic or simply a desire to shop closer to home, smaller, direct-to-consumer businesses can look forward to a great 2022.These players sell goods ranging from ready meals to hand-crafted goods or fresh produce. Many deliver to their
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9. The Rebound of the “Mom-and-Pop Shop.”
customers’ doorsteps, which engenders brand affinity and loyalty.
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10. Prioritization of Data Backup and Recovery
Data is one of the most valuable commodities an ecommerce store produces. Without these insights, it would be impossible to compete; the brand wouldn’t be able to predict future needs or project trends.Your online store could go down for any number of reasons. Accidental deletion by an employee, a power outage,
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10. Prioritization of Data Backup and Recovery
a malicious attack, or loss of premises due to a fire or flood could quickly destroy on-premise servers and computers. As such, it’s critical to have a proactive cloud backup strategy to ensure your data and digital assets are preserved.With all systems and products digitized, any downtime would represent a significant loss for
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10. Prioritization of Data Backup and Recovery
any business, but for an ecommerce store, all the more. Loss of business continuity will cost you sales and can also cost you customers who will gladly take their business elsewhere if they feel your site is unreliable or untrustworthy.