While the worst effects of the coronavirus pandemic are (hopefully) behind us, the impact it’s left on our world seems sure to remain a feature in any biography of the present day. Digital transformation and the migration of customers online were already underway before the virus hit, but progress has been markedly accelerated as people turned to the internet to meet most of their needs. Where many sectors suffered a downturn and businesses closed during the lockdown, eCommerce businesses thrived across the board, displaying the flexibility and agility needed to overcome hitherto unforeseen events.
Online shopping, then, can continue to spread, but now is not the hour for eCommerce businesses to grow complacent. Audiences and markets continue to shift and transform with the times, so the world of eCommerce will have to embrace new strategies if businesses are to make the most of coming opportunities. With this in mind, here are five emerging eCommerce trends that are likely to set the tone for eCommerce business ideas in 2022. If you’re wondering how to start an eCommerce business in the near future, these will be the trends to watch out for.
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“Customer-Friendly” Will be King
As audience demographics shift, eCommerce companies will have to adapt to these changes to improve consumer engagement. Customer retention continues to be a real problem for eCommerce firms, which often struggle to communicate their brand identity to the same degree enjoyed by traditional bricks-and-mortar retail outlets. Think about how many times someone has used an eCommerce business just to buy a single phone case or charging cable and never visited that site again.
This is why customer-centric practices are going to carry real weight next year. Innovations like responsive CRM platforms and guaranteed delivery windows will have to be established to keep customers onside. These interventions can encourage long-term consumer relationships that benefit both parties beyond one-off purchases.
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Omnichannel eCommerce Will Become Standard
With various smart devices offering more ways to shop, the biggest eCommerce brands are looking to strengthen their omnichannel retail experience. “Omnichannel” refers to the creation of a uniform retail experience for customers across the various devices and channels they might use to make a purchase, which includes everything from mobile to voice assistants.
Omnichannel shopping strengthens brand engagement and allows for more holistic retail experiences regardless of the platform a customer chooses to shop with. Omnichannel platforms also offer retailers a rich source of data for analyzing the differences in customer behaviors depending on their means of engagement, which can be used to inform future retail alignment.
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Video Marketing on Social Media
Video is swiftly becoming the dominant medium on social platforms, as the meteoric rise of TikTok among younger demographics amply displays. Video has already proven itself in online marketing as a powerful method of engaging audiences. However, users still have to navigate to a page and click play before they can watch. With social media, however, the platform does the hard work in connecting you with audiences by delivering your video content directly into their feeds.
Consequently, video advertising on social media will become an even more valuable resource for eCommerce marketing. Traditionally, branding and marketing have been a tricky challenge for eCommerce companies who want to stand out in a crowded marketplace, but social media video marketing could well be the solution. If the content produced can be informative and engaging, it represents a significant opportunity for attracting new customers and driving sales.
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Voice Purchasing
With smart home devices and virtual assistants like Siri, Google Home, and Alexa appearing in more and more households, people are beginning to make purchases without even lifting a finger. With unparalleled convenience, voice purchasing is likely to account for an increased share of net retail, and it’s only going to get more popular as time goes on. The question, then, for eCommerce businesses is how to go about taking advantage of the new phenomenon to leverage greater sales.
The best place to start might well be voice-enabled eCommerce SEO. Voice-enabled SEO is likely to differ from conventional SEO, as most people verbally articulate search queries far differently than if they were simply typing them. So, where a voice search might say, “How is the weather in New York?”, a typed inquiry would simply be something like “weather New York.” Fortunately, services like Google Assistant are getting better at returning desired voice search results as time goes on, but you’ll need the SEO in your eCommerce website design to cater more towards the kind of spoken voice inquiries that you’re likely to encounter.
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Headless eCommerce Platforms
Most eCommerce operators like the idea of being in complete control of their frontend storefront so that it can be utilized for custom designs and branding to help make their products more marketable. Unfortunately, many of the biggest online marketplaces and eCommerce platforms force a premade design onto clients who have to market their inventory with a uniform frontend template. When you’re trying to make your products stand out from the competition, this restriction can prove prohibitive and, more importantly, costly.
It’s no surprise, then, the so-called “headless” approach could offer the best of both worlds to provide the best eCommerce platform available. These platforms offer a frontend layer that’s separate from the backend, meaning any changes you make to your storefront in terms of design and presentation don’t interfere with backend eCommerce software, as API calls retrieve the backend data separately. This gives eCommerce website builders complete control of the UI/UX builds on their storefronts across all their different sales channels like social media, desktop, and mobile. Consequently, merchants have the potential to center their storefronts around brand engagement and create a unique eCommerce website design to make their inventory stand out.
The Bottom Line
If we examine the trends that are going to define eCommerce in 2022, one theme ties them all together: customer satisfaction. Customers need to be able to seamlessly negotiate purchasing journeys, whether they’re using a virtual assistant or buying through a social media ad on their mobile devices.
For many consumers, eCommerce has represented a hit-and-run retail experience, where a one-off purchase signals the beginning and end of the buyer-brand engagement. But with more platforms for sales and marketing than ever before, eCommerce operators will have no excuse to ignore technological assets capable of growing the customer bases and driving up sales.
What are the key trends that you foresee defining the development of eCommerce next year? Are there any exciting developments that we’ve missed? Feel free to share them with us in the comments sections below.
