2019 is almost over (that’s fast) and here comes the holiday season again when online shopping activities will become more frequent over the world. There’s no doubt that during this period, brands will be enjoying customers flooding in your store and sales increasing. However, what happens when this joyful period is over? How can brands remain attractive to customers all-year-around with new marketing initiatives? How to keep the market interested in your brand not only just when your products are on sale?
Before we dive into the e-Commerce trends in 2020, let’s recap the trends in 2019 in our previous article, because they will remain relevant in this decade.
Commerce trends to watch out in 2020, and why?
We hope this useful guide can prepare you for the upcoming 2020 calendar year. Moreover, make your e-Commerce business staying competitive and profitable all year. Brands and merchants are somewhere along the path of digital transformation and trying to keep up with the fast-changing nature of communications with their audience. However, there are many internal and external challenges, and we hope these trends we mentioned below can help merchants get a heads up of the trends and start planning!
1. Consumer Trust Will Build Through Product Videos
According to a study, 46% of consumers have purchased an item by watching a product description video.
If you have been on crowd-funding websites before, you will notice that almost every product has a short demo video to introduce the brand and its product features. A video gives a better understanding of the product and increases the customers’ trust. Some videos demonstrate how to use the product and the benefits you can get from it — urging users to make a purchase. Moreover, eCommerce product videos have evolved to be a more engaging, immersive, and 360-degree shopping experience.
2. Personalization
Although personalization was emphasized in many fields of marketing, such as inbound marketing, email marketing, and more for years. It has never been more critical in this digital era. Compare to traditional brick and mortar shopping, eCommerce stores lack face-to-face personal interaction. Online stores do not have a retail salesclerk who can greet and suggest products based on your interest, taste, and personal preferences.
To mimic this experience, merchants should leverage personalization opportunities throughout the shopping journey.
3. Chatbot Messenger Ordering System or Conversational commerce
Messaging platform such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and more have allowed people to discover and purchase products or services via a dialogue, such as ordering food. The idea is that users can chat with organizations to get information, answer questions, and transact through Messenger. However, this can be challenging for brands since the brands’ chatbot must be designed closely aligned with the messages delivered by emails and SMEs, as well as by phone or at point of sale.
4. The Decline of Apps and the Emergence of PWA
Research has shown that by June 2017, the Andriod Play Store reached more than 3 million, and there are more than 2 million in Apple’s App Store. In 2019, new data from Morgan Stanley states that App Store downloads have seen a year-over-year quarterly drop for the first time since 2015.
So, what’s wrong with apps? There’s nothing wrong with apps. It’s just the website browsing experience on mobile phones these days are adaptive and responsive enough for users to finish their online shopping. Brands and retailers will begin moving from sites and apps to a new standard; the Progressive Web App—a hybrid between websites and apps which combine the upsides of each and eliminates the limitations.
5. Immersive Commerce or iCommerce
Immersive Commerce is an extension of e-Commerce that centers on improving buyer experience. By using advanced digital technology to design virtual smart shops from existing brick and mortar locations. Some brands would create and customize branded showroom environments, which showcase product catalogs, new collections, with AR or 3D visualization.
An example could be a virtual shop, and your customers can view 3D images of all products, and walk around the aisle and racks to check out the store and products. Moreover, if you sell clothes, you can create a virtual fitting room, where customers can stimulate how clothes or accessories would look on them.
Marketing Associate at SHOPLINE. A digital marketing nerd and a podcast fan. You can find her out in the woods once in a while but most of the times she’s glued to her laptop screen indoors.