The last two years have brought tremendous technological progress in the area of e-commerce. A variety of technical developments are responsible for even more efficient online shops. Due to the constant increase in sales in the field of e-commerce, this tendency is not surprising.
In the year 2019, a turnover of about 1,822,033 million euros is expected. According to a prognosis, this number will grow to 2,476,121 million euros in 2023. This means an annual sales growth of 8.0 percent. We will introduce some trends, with which you can push your online shop, and which help you in dealing with the growing demand.
Mobile shopping
More and more users are shopping while they’re on the way, in B2B as well as in B2C. Smartphones, tablets and flexible work places (keyword: mobile office & home office) lead to a focus on mobile shopping. Consequently, mobile optimization of your online shop is imperative, if you don’t want to lose customers. It is called “mobile first” for a reason! Even if the actual purchase is made at the desktop, most users still gather information about products and services on their mobile devices.
Customer-specific content hits home
A dynamic shopping experience, where content is displayed according to actions and preferences of users, greatly improves the customer loyalty in real-time. You can for example offer product recommendations that are based on user preferences deduced from either prior purchases and interactions with the brand or geographical locations. Users feel that they are being addressed on a personal level, which in turn has a positive influence on the brand image.
Content & commerce – inseparable
More and more companies have realized that content helps in gaining attention and trust. This fact is by now also applied in the area of e-commerce. Place your online shop in the top positions of organic search results with the help of high-quality, search engine optimized content. An online shop offering much information seems reliable to customers. Therefore, the following holds true: the more information about your products you are showing (images, test results, descriptions, technical data etc.), the more customer-friendly your online shop becomes. We all know that customer friendliness means higher buying intentions.
More efficiency thanks to artificial intelligence
It has become nearly impossible to manually gather and analyze data from your prospects’ online interactions. More and more data are being collected (big data), which makes using artificial intelligence (AI) essential if you want to collect, process and analyze data efficiently. With the help of AI, you are able to create predictions regarding customer behavior and preferences of your potential customers.
