Impact of Ecommerce Trends on the Retail Industry
Shopping, that was only meant to be through physical stores just some years ago, has an altogether new face with the advent of ecommerce - the world of online shopping.
In fact, the trends in the ecommerce industry play a pivotal role in changing the fate of the entire retail business. Ecommerce has a great impact on the retail industry influencing the latter to offer an equally engaging shopping experience.
The best ecommerce trends have slipped into the retail world and most of the retail shops either have or will have an online presence soon. Retailers are adopting new technologies that enable potential customers to access the listed products anytime, anywhere. This helps to bring in more customers to the website and generate sales.
Is your retail business still not on an e-commerce platform? If not, you may miss out on a great deal of business as much as $4.8 trillion retail ecommerce sales is projected globally for the year 2021.
Here’s how the retail industry is rapidly being influenced by e-commerce trends:
Enhanced Customer Engagement
“The path to conversion is not about clicks but about the conversation.” - Sarah Doody
A user experience (UX) designer and a consultant, Sarah Doody, thinks that there will be a boost in online sales only by having a conversation or discussion with people.
Ecommerce stores have close and personal individual communications with customers. With personalisation, ecommerce companies influence a major part of a customers’ shopping journey. Customised pop-ups, messages, emails, etc. help to pick up reviews or feedback from customers. This, further, helps the ecommerce stores in enhancing the engagement with the customers.
Retail businesses globally are definitely looking for enhanced customer engagement for greater conversions and are thereby looking to provide an online shopping experience just like their ecommerce counterparts.
Improved Shopping Experience
In 2020, robots will fully conquer ecommerce stores. Robot-like chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly being used by ecommerce stores to upgrade their customer’s shopping experience as a whole.
AI assistants can deal with various tasks normally relegated to a human, for example, overseeing stock or taking care of the orders. These digital assistants carry out different procedures and save time to help you concentrate on other parts of maintaining the business.
AI and chatbots serve as a boon for the retail industry and help to understand customer conversations for a better shopping experience. AI technology in retail stores assists in making virtual racks as well as trial rooms to discover the perfect style for customers.
Customers can right away perceive how a dress, shoes, accessories, and so on would look on them. They can browse through recommendations depending on their interests and style.
Likewise, retail stores are also getting influenced to use AI and analyze insights on customer behavior, streamlining their product portfolio accordingly for a much better retail experience delivery. This leads to a smoother purchasing process for the customer. So, if there is an opportunity to actualise AI for your retail business too, it is now!
Reduced Sales Journey
More ecommerce websites are embracing the use of chatbots to assist customers in a better way. Chatbots help to decrease the customers’ sales journey by making the searches simple for them to make choices and buy products quickly.
Hubspot revealed that 48 percent of buyers will want to use a Chabot while reaching out to a company. Chatbots are additionally anticipated to handle 85% of customer service interactions by 2020.
Utilising AI with natural language processing technology and smart analytics, the retail industry can enable customers to get immediate support within the stores. Robots and touch panels placed in stores can assist customers in searching for the product, and get a solution to the queries.
With customer service bots powered by AI, retail e-commerce stores can overcome their labor costs and give 24×7 help to the customers. This will not only enhance customer service but also reduce the sales journey of a customer and pull in more purchasers to the store.
Improved Shipping Options
Logistics and shipping is one field that has decayed a lot in the past years. Little enhancements like free shipping did happen in recent times, but nothing exceptional in the shipping arena took off until 2013 when the ‘same day’ delivery idea became mainstream.
But with the advancement in ecommerce and the rising importance of using the right tools, retail businesses can now analyze data like product search history, pricing, website traffic, mobile device usage, shipping locations, and parcels’ time in transit to settle on key shipping decisions.
Sooner, drones will be able to deliver the products to local areas more efficiently and quickly. Delivery drones will turn into a viable business component of every retail business very soon. The drones strive to decrease delivery times in a cost-effective way.
Drones come with myriad benefits for customers as well as retailers, bringing in a seamless and quick shipping experience to the customers and boosting the brand loyalty of retailers.
Increase in Conversion Rates using Voice Search
Voice search is taking a lead in the ecommerce industry! It is increasingly getting prominent, and retailers who are looking to multiply their returns must deploy voice search features too in their online portals in order to make their portal excitingly attractive.
The recent Bright local study uncovered that 58% of buyers have used voice search to get local businesses in the last year.
With the advent of voice search, retailers get a new way of selling their products. Many retail brands are turning successful with voice search. Johnnie Walker, Domino’s, or Nestlé are some of the retailers who have created their own unique voice. They make sure that the customers searching the product through voice assistants and get the information they need. Voice Search is even more convenient to customers and offers retailers an opportunity to sell more ensuring higher conversion rates and a higher ROI.
Final Thoughts
Are you aiming at a strong online reputation for your retail business? Then it is important to stay updated with the latest e-commerce trends. The popularisation of ecommerce trends within the last decade has truly created a great impact on customers and their shopping experience. This has influenced the retail industry too in fuelling their sales through the use of online platforms.
Do let us know in the comments section given below how e-commerce trends have impacted your retail business.