2019 Innovations in eCommerce
The eCommerce industry is taking on a larger share in global retail sales every year. From 2015 to 2019, global eCommerce nearly doubled it’s share in total global retail sales from 7.4% to 13.7% (Statista). Companies must innovate to keep up with this growth to keep customers happy and maintain or increase their share of the market. To provide the best possible customer experience, here are some 2019 eCommerce innovations that you can implement into your digital strategy that will make a difference when it comes to pleasing customers and increasing revenue.
Innovations in Artificial Intelligence
Innovations that once sounded futuristic are now crucial elements of digital strategy for many eCommerce businesses. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Chatbots, Virtual Assistants and other innovations routinely help businesses increase engagement, improve customer service, improve accuracy of data and automate repetitive tasks. AI helps to personalize web content which improve conversion rates by showing relevant content to a visitor based on their past behavior or personal data. AI also helps improve the accuracy of your data by overlaying datasets from multiple platforms and assessing any trends between your data. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants are more advanced now than ever and are able to alleviate some of the workload from employees, leaving them to tend to more complicated tasks.
Innovations in Site Search
When you know what you want, you may search for a brand or product name directly when arriving at a website. You may even ask Siri or another Virtual Assistant to find it for you. Site Search has become paramount to improving the customer experience and a lack there-of could be very damaging to your business in the long run. There are many tools that can be added to your site including intelligent navigation, natural language semantic search, advanced auto-complete, cross sell or product recommendations and dynamic merchandising. Voice Shopping is becoming more popular so be sure to prepare your site for voice search to capture sales from people searching on voice-based virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google Assistant. Overall, site search tools rapidly speed up the path to purchase and increase order values by letting customers sort, narrow and refine results using product attributes and by recommending relevant items based on a variety of parameters.
Innovations for Global eCommerce Expansion
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the United States. Imagine the growth potential opportunity if you’re already a successful online retailer only reaching 5% of your potential target audience? Website platforms are making it easier for companies to expand to new global markets by offering native content translation and more multi-currency payment methods worldwide. Translating your content presents the opportunity to convert more customers who feel more comfortable shopping in their native language and also rank better on search engines for keywords in other languages. Just like customers prefer to shop in their own language, they also prefer to use certain payment methods and shop in their own currency. Displaying pricing in the local market currency and offering alternative payment options like debit, credit, eWallets like PayPal, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay and cash on delivery increases the likelihood of converting each customer.
Innovations to Prepare for More mCommerce
Mobile Commerce, or mCommerce, accounted for almost 59% of all digital sales in 2017 (eMarketer). Companies have been pushing app usage as customers browse 286% more products and convert 3 times more often in apps than on themobile web (Internet Retailer). Progressive Web Apps are a hybrid between a website and app and don’t need to be downloaded in an app store. They load faster than a website, can be used offline and allow for push notifications to encourage purchase. If your website is not mobile-optimized you will lose customers who are shopping on mobile. Google has initiated a new algorithm to index mobile-first versions of websites giving them priority ranking over websites that are not yet mobile-optimized. In 2019, companies may focus more on selling based on mobile location to increase the relevance of an online shopping experience on-the-go.
Take heed of these eCommerce innovations for 2019 and you can learn ways to improve the online shopping experience for your customers. You’ll be rewarded with loyal customers who return for more great experiences, positive word-of-mouth marketing and increased revenues and conversions from more shoppers on your site.
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