Since the revolution of globalization has joined hands with the advance technology, e-commerce business has been increasing rapidly. In 2019, the worldwide revenue of the e-commerce industry was estimated US$ 3.53 trillion and is expected to increase by US$ by 3.01 trillion by 2023. The figures itself are evidence of the growing reach of e-commerce across the sphere.
During the global medical emergency, when the businesses were struggling to ensure sustainability, e-commerce provides a platform to businesses to turn the situation into an opportunity and get the best out of it. Today with millions of online stores, e-commerce is blossoming.
As the businesses are looking forward to moving to the e-commerce platform; the competition has also been increasing rapidly. And the stores that optimize the technology advances to its best manage to stand out of the crowd. Without the use of advanced technology, it is nearly impossible to survive in the e-commerce industry.
Why is technology important for e-commerce?
E-Commerce refers to the “electronic commerce”, meaning technology is the main fuel for the evolution of e-commerce industries. Right from creating a website for your business to track the shipment; technology is involved in every aspect of e-commerce. Besides, preferences of consumers have also changed, now they find it easy to shop by smartphones at any time from anywhere. Technology makes the transaction and operation easy on e-commerce.
An e-commerce business must keep pace with the technology to ensure survivability in the e-commerce industry.
Emerging Trends in the e-commerce industry
Marketing Automation – Marketing automation is one of the latest trends that many e-commerce businesses have been using. On e-commerce connection with customers is very crucial for long term benefit and marketing automation does the same. It sends tailored emails to consumers regularly and schedules social media posts for business. Besides, as per the visitors’ history recommends products and retargets the customers. It intelligently executes the marketing strategy when needed.
Blockchain Technology – Blockchain is yet another crucial trend in the e-commerce industry. It mainly covers payment, decentralized and supply chain aspects of e-commerce. It is a digital ledger that records the transaction on a database which is encrypted and stores it across various computer systems. Since it aids a decentralized ecosystem, it is extremely difficult to hack from a single point. It also tracks the shipment movement in real-time and, by utilizing available data, it makes intelligent predictions that increases the efficiency of operations.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been marking its existence almost everywhere. Generally, e-commerce websites have to deal with a large amount of data, and it becomes quite difficult to manage both business and data management simultaneously. That’s where AI comes into light by using the accuracy of AI, it is easy to handle large data. Besides, AI aids e-commerce with a real-time experience that is supportive for generating leads and provides personalized experience across multiple devices.
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) - Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality innovative shopping experience to customers. By Augmented Reality, customers can preview the product that they are intending to buy before making a final purchase decision. Whereas, Virtual Reality permits customers to try things virtually. It provides experience to users what they look like when they use the product. Lenskart, Instagram and Snapchat Filters are the best examples of it.
Voice assistance – Voice assistance has gained popularity as soon as it is launched. For an e-commerce website, Amazons’ Alexa is the best example of voice assistance. A large number of people like to use voice assistance to navigate through e-commerce websites, especially millennial. It is easy to use and allows consumers to use it even when they are doing something. It increases the traffic on the website and works on the voice command of the shoppers.
Chatbots – Chatbot is another form of Artificial Intelligence and has been used widely almost by every website. It improves customer care services and provides 24/7 assistance to the customers. The chatbot does a conversation with users in the natural language like a human being. It interprets the characters and words received from a user to provide the set of answers. A chatbot is very supportive for enhancing user engagement by assisting them through live chats.
Subscription e-commerce model – Although subscription e-commerce is not something new, yet as the global pandemic hit across the globe, the consumers prefer online shopping over window shopping. It creates an opportunity for an e-commerce business to gain loyal customers and retain previous customers for a long time. It stands on the notion of the recurring revenue from the customers in exchange for recurring services.
With the global medical emergency, many businesses have opted for e-commerce platforms to ensure its perpetuity. As the number of e-commerce businesses is growing, the competition has also been increasing rapidly. Thus it is crucial for a business to match its space with the emergent and ongoing trends of the e-commerce industry to be an active competitor.
From the management of online inventory to 24/7 customer services, managing an e-commerce platform is quite troublesome. Therefore, it is rational to outsource e-commerce services to preserve the integrity of the business.
Hvantage understands the effort, time and cost required to run both online & offline business and thus we propose to manage your online store to help you scale down effort and costs on its management and ensure scaling your profits & business up.
Experience an enhanced corporate environment with us