40% of the world’s internet users have purchased products online, which amounts to more than 1 billion online buyers with global e-commerce sales projected to top 3.9 trillion in 2020, the e-commerce business is booming and will continue to grow in 2020. But as businesses experiment and try to give consumers what they want, the online retail space is changing rapidly as it’s important to stay on top of current trends to stay competitive.
Fifty percent of all web traffic happens on mobile devices and forty percent of all e-commerce purchases made during the holidays happen on a smartphone as many brands have embraced minimalism, which allows them to focus on perfecting a core product. Personalization is a key component to any e-commerce retailers’ site, this can also give insights into how these users are engaging with the sites. Leveraging customer data to tailor content and product offerings based on behaviors, interests and more has become a standard for B2C e-commerce companies and it also takes away from choice overload the idea that access to too many choices makes decision-making more difficult and less satisfying which can be a relief to consumers. Mobile users spend less time on-site, view fewer pages per session, and have higher bounce rates and so, companies that focus on limited offerings often begin with only one or two products. More and more B2B organizations that are currently going through digital transformation will increasingly use big data to solidify their relationship with buyers also companies should also benchmark their mobile page load speed using a tool like Google Page Speed Insights.
An uncluttered, back-to-basics approach is being applied to website design, which has been found to increase e-commerce sales as it will improve the user experience. The consumers demand more and more personalization and they also expect privacy from the retailers they shop with, should companies fail to do so, studies have shown that 53 percent of website visitors will leave a page as data privacy will be a critical consideration in the future. Another way is to expose people to e-commerce business is through influencer marketing, employing leaders in a specific industry to share brand’s products and messaging with a key audience. When the users see barriers to getting what they want, when they want, removed without seeing any compromises, that goes a long way towards building trust, and influencing users to help in building trust as well as bring more traffic. Also, people spend an average of 90 minutes a day looking at their phones, according to a study and consumers seek product recommendations from influencers nearly as often as they do from friends, according to one study that also found that 49% of consumers look to influencers when making product decisions.
Retailers have an overwhelming amount of data at their disposal which makes texting a good option to the market. Text messaging isn’t a new concept, but many brands still don’t take advantage of text messaging as a medium to communicate with their customers while influencer marketing has especially taken off on Instagram, where it’s already a $1.7 billion industry, it makes a viable option to utilize full potential of texting through influencers. With help of influencers, companies can reduce advertising costs as 2020 will be the year of owned marketing as businesses put more effort into growing their customer lists and using the marketing channels within their own control to engage shoppers.
