eCommerce is fickle and heavily influenced by trends. Some trends stick around and change the online trading landscape for good, and others last just a few weeks or months before fading into obscurity.
Of course, not every trend will be relevant to your business, clients, or agency, but grasping all of the changes and reforms impacting the broader eCommerce space gives you the ability to discuss trends as a digital marketing pro and identify any risks or opportunities heading your way.
Keeping one eye on the future and having at least a baseline understanding of the impacts that new technologies like AI and VR are likely to have is key to innovation and incorporating these exciting and dynamic features into campaigns to come – without being left behind.
Without further ado, we’ve compiled a concise list of the trends gaining the most traction and outlined what they might mean to digital marketers working in the eCommerce space.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Customer Experiences
Also referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, AI is absolutely everywhere, and it’s having a significant impact on eCommerce. Today’s consumers are getting used to tools and features that make an online purchase feel like a transaction in a boutique, with personalization and attention to detail.
Some of the trends we’ve seen include:
- Virtual changing rooms, where customers can see how a garment would look on them in real life or when paired with another outfit.
- Beauty product testing, such as taking a selfie and checking what each color of lipstick or hair dye would look like before checking out.
- 3D immersive video graphics, giving consumers a far better idea about how a product looks, feels or tastes than a static video.
Interactive AI tools are also worth learning more about, where brands use customer data or prompts to change the way a product is displayed, select relevant items to suggest, or provide the functionality to see a product in the customer’s environment – such as how well a sofa would fit in their own lounge.
Consumer-Centric Personalization
The above trends already make online shopping more personalized. Still, the vast reams of data at our fingertips take this further, where eCommerce brands extract and use a number of data points to inform the way their stores and products appear.
That can relate to:
- Purchasing behavior and browsing histories.
- Demographic information about the buyer’s location, age, or affluence.
- Prompts to check out, refill a subscription, or register for a deal or offer.
Personalized email campaigns, web pages, and checkouts featuring the customer’s name, referring back to the preferences or previous orders the person has made, and using push notifications can act as an up-sale strategy or simply improve customer trust and loyalty.
Dynamic Product and Service Pricing in eCommerce
While this next trend is a bit controversial, it’s also something we have to include since dynamic pricing has come under scrutiny, particularly when used by airlines, travel operators, and ride-sharing businesses, which change the pricing for the same service or product based on availability, competitor’s price points, and demand.
The contention is that some see this tactic as exploitative, where a brand might hike the price on a journey or flight if it’s been searched for lots of times or if a specific customer has already looked at pricing or availability.
However, eCommerce companies are also counteracting dynamic pricing or using an alternative approach by introducing more flexible payment options.
Visit any big eCommerce platform, and you’re very likely to have the option to pay with your Google or Apple Wallet, PayPal, Klarna, ClearPay, Affirm, or Sezzle. Again, there are concerns about buy-now-pay-later options making debt more accessible and targeting more vulnerable consumers – but it’s also something that is in high demand.
Humanizing Problem-Solving With Chatbots
Our next trend has been around for a while but is also becoming more prevalent throughout the eCommerce industry. Chatbots, powered by AI, are more lifelike and use inflections and relaxed, informal language that is a world away from the static, limited communications these tools used to offer.
Today, an eCommerce company can use a chatbot to answer questions, provide 24/7 customer service, offer updates on delivery times, process returns and exchanges, and ultimately mean that a brand remains on hand to help or respond to a query on demand from any location or device the shopper happens to be using.
Advanced Search Functions and Parameters
Consumers commonly use search boxes to find a product or service, and these standard tools are changing rapidly. The current trends include:
- Voice search, where consumers can use Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or any smartphone or device with a microphone to complete a hands-free search.
- Hands-free checkouts, particularly for repeat orders and subscriptions.
- Natural language-enabled search, where a customer can search by style, pattern, shape, or any other keyword to find an item, even if they don’t know its product number or actual name.
Image-based search is also popular. The rise of social media influencers means people can search by an image of a product they like, usually from a screenshot, and be shown all the closest available options immediately.
This element has also prompted more social media shopping features, where viewers browsing a feed can use one-click checkout options or participate in live shopping experiences directly through their preferred channel without heading to a third-party eCommerce website.
Sustainability in Modern eCommerce Trends
We all recognize that today’s consumers are far more interested in their carbon footprint, sustainability, and ethics when making product choices, which has contributed to the spike in convenient, zero-effort subscriptions and rental services, especially in high-end eCommerce.
There are lots of great examples, such as:
- Using customer loyalty schemes to provide a carbon offset solution, such as planting a certain number of trees for every ten orders or based on the value spent with the brand.
- Providing subscription services in eco-friendly, recycled, and recyclable packaging.
- Switching to compostable or zero-plastic shopping boxes and bags.
From an eCommerce perspective, eco-friendly initiatives, often combined with subscriptions, provide more stable, dependable income streams, foster customer loyalty, and tap into a market where convenience is king and environmentally conscious credentials sweeten the deal.
Keeping Pace With the Latest eCommerce Trends
The trick for digital marketers isn’t solely to know about current trends or to keep their finger on newer trends that are likely to emerge in the months and years ahead—it is picking and choosing the trends that align with the brands they represent and will matter to their target audiences.
A lot will depend on the style, market, and focus of the eCommerce brand, and it’s essential to avoid jumping on a trend without proper research or intent—green-washing is a brilliant example that has caught out even mega brands.
H&M, the fast fashion brand, demonstrated this major pitfall unfortunately well, when it started asking customers to drop old garments off in store, claiming to have the biggest global collection and recycling scheme and offering shoppers a voucher to use against future purchases in return.
Although that might seem to tap into the demand for sustainability and potentially mean more customers would choose the brand for eCommerce online or app-based shopping, with the benefit of being able to dispose of unwanted clothes responsibly, it backfired spectacularly.
An investigation that tracked donated garments found that although some were indeed recycled, many others were incinerated or sent to landfills in disadvantaged countries – showcasing why a trend might seem exciting and appealing but can go horribly wrong if not adopted correctly.
