2020 Trends in e-Commerce

Various e-commerce platforms across the globe are changing their business strategy and integrating newer trends and tech to meet the requirements of today’s dynamic market. With customers gaining awareness and increasing their demands, businesses need to keep up.

Therefore, e-commerce is going through several shifts in trends. Most recently, in 2020, there are a number of trends that are now occurring. Let’s take a look at how these trends impact e-commerce and business activities.

QR codes

QR codes for payment are becoming widely available. These are one of the many payment options that are now being offered to buyers. The benefit of QR codes is that they are instant and very time-efficient, and also usable by the majority of the buyers.

However, the important thing to keep in mind here is that QR codes are alone not important. But the fact that there need to be multiple alternatives to payment options is the key.

Mobile shopping

Since 2016, there has been a drastic increase in mobile shopping. Now that everyone owns a smartphone and an internet connection anywhere they go, mobile shopping has become widely popular. People are now searching for product names, types, and brands on search engines through their mobile phones. And therefore, they easily link up to e-commerce sites on their mobile phones as well.

Therefore, many businesses in e-commerce are now shifting towards making their website and business layout more mobile-friendly by launching mobile-version sites, and even applications now.

Role of social media

E-commerce in 2020 is incomplete without the integration of social media. The role of social media has hugely evolved, ranging from Facebook advertisements to YouTube ads. Even these social media platforms now integrate significant features that help enhance and increase the number of shoppers for e-commerce businesses.

A good example will be the “buy” and “shop now” options that we see on Facebook and Instagram. As soon as the user sees an interesting ad, they are given a call to action that they can click on and immediately redirect to the actual product. These lead to greater chances of the user becoming a customer. Speaking of social media’s role in e-commerce, let’s move on to our next 2020 e-commerce trend: influencer marketing.

Influencers

If you have an account on social media, particularly on Instagram, you will be aware of what we are talking about. Influencers are now taking over the marketing world as they become vital for e-commerce businesses to advertise their products.

Influencers are individuals and even groups of people who run blog-like social media public accounts. They work in different genres, like makeup, fashion, food, skincare, and even traveling. These people work by talking about using and reviewing products and services and sharing details on their social media account with their thousands of followers.

The credibility of these influencers is high since they are common people and interact with very similar kinds of fans and followers. They have engaging content where they answer questions and concerns for their followers, with discreet marketing for the product they are paid for.

Personalization

Since customers today are becoming more aware of their needs and wants, they are also in dire need of personalization. A personalized buying experience is believed to be highly beneficial and influential on the customer, even in traditional businesses.

Therefore, in e-commerce as well, personalized digital experience and journey have become important. One way e-commerce businesses ensure this personalization is by creating headless e-commerce.

Headless e-commerce means the backend and the front end of the e-commerce are separable, making the platform more flexible and adaptable. A similar thing called open-source e-commerce is also used to guarantee personalization.

Programmers and coders are able to customize their website according to their own business needs and requirements. This allows them to build an exact website that will match the customer’s profile that they want to target.

A number of open-source software and platforms can be used to achieve this level of customizability.

Content management, an important step in the world of e-commerce

With changing rules and regulations over the web about what content can be published and whatnot, there has become a dire need for e-commerce businesses to frequently maintain and update their content.

Just like in traditional physical stores where one needs to keep check of their products, e-commerce businesses need to keep check of their activity on various platforms. A good check of your content and efficient management of it leads to better success.

However, if one is not tech-savvy and does not have much experience with content management, how can they achieve that level of optimization?

The answer is simple CMS, or content management systems. There are various platforms available in the market that offer features like data analytics, indexing, search, revision, and even publishing templates to manage content.

You don’t have to be a skilled coder to use these, and they also have budget-friendly plans to meet the needs of smaller-scale businesses.

Conclusion

It is important to pick the right platform for your e-commerce venture. Without the right tools and techniques, your efforts can become unsuccessful. The dynamic conditions in the market require you to keep your business flexible and adaptable, so you are in line with your competitor’s moves and your customer’s needs. CMS and other marketing software are now widely available to help your business perform better.