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Ten Hottest E-commerce trends

Over the past three years, a lot has happened in the world of online commerce. Which adjustments are transient when so many more individuals buy from home in 2020 and 2021? Which ideas will endure? What new eCommerce trends will be prevalent in 2022?

1. More choices for payment

Credit and debit cards came first. Later, technologies like PayPal appeared. But nowadays, internet shoppers have a variety of payment options at their disposal. Customers will purchase from your online store more frequently if you can provide them additional alternatives.

Digital wallets like Venmo, which allow consumers to pay using the Venmo app or using a QR code specific to your business, are one new trend.

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) and other products like Pay in Four are another payment trend that is rapidly gaining popularity. These let clients to pay in instalments for larger items without having to meet requirements or waste time with traditional financing and credit checks. Check out these six ways that Buy Now, Pay Later may expand your company.

It is advisable to use services like Affirm or PayPal, which connect with WooCommerce, to add BNPL to your online business.

Finally, as several eCommerce sites and other companies are starting to take cryptocurrency, some customers may even find it to be a decent alternative.

You may take payments using the WooCommerce Payments plugin in over 135 different currencies, from dozens of different countries, and with express payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and others.

2. Expensive online advertising

Due in large part to the enormous expansion of eCommerce, which has seen its proportion of overall retail expenditure increase from 10% to 20% in only five years, online advertising expenses have risen. Will this trend endure now that in-person purchasing is returning? It's difficult to say.

However, Facebook ad prices increased 47% in the previous year, making it even more crucial than ever to concentrate on enhancing your client retention techniques. Make the most of your current audience since marketing to existing clients is significantly less expensive than pursuing new ones.

3. Giving customers more review choices

Consumers want to be confident that firms, which sometimes don't have physical stores, would treat them fairly, therefore online evaluations are becoming more and more significant. Your internet standing is very important.

Your marketing plan should routinely include using email marketing to get evaluations from your greatest clients. Additionally, make sure to provide links to the different review-gathering platforms, such as Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, or other more sector-specific websites that are relevant to your goods and services.

4. Variability in ordering

When it comes to online ordering, customers want more alternatives and choices.

They could wish to make a single purchase yet send their goods to two distinct addresses, for instance. With alternatives like split orders, pre-orders, in-store pickup, and "clicks to bricks," which combines your online store with in-person selling, you should be able to give flexibility in the ordering process.

Customers should have the option to be informed when a product is back in stock if it is out of stock. Because it adds them to your email list, this is also a clever lead creation technique.

Finally, shipment date predictions have an impact on pre-ordering, so be precise with them. Additionally, make sure to keep them informed through email or text on the order's status, particularly if something causes your first projected shipment date to shift.

5. Customer service chatbots

Many online shops aren't nearly big enough to employ customer support representatives full-time. What then should you do when online customers have inquiries?

Because they provide better customer assistance than FAQ sites and support forums, chatbots are becoming more and more popular. Because customers are more inclined to make purchases when their inquiries are answered, they also result in more income. Chatbots were credited with generating $2.8 billion in revenue globally in 2019, and this figure keeps rising.

6. Limited ability to influence internet targeting

Online retailers and other companies employing online advertising now find it much more difficult to target their ideal clients efficiently and successfully because of the Apple iOS14 privacy and online tracking upgrade.

Due to this, internet advertising is becoming more expensive and more difficult to monitor for campaign success.

As a result, eCommerce companies need to concentrate on creating their own internal marketing lists and managing their own media.

Because you may promote to your own list as frequently as you like, increasing your email subscriber list is turning into one of your most crucial marketing techniques. Both Mail Poet and Automate Woo allow you to carry out efficient email marketing and smoothly interact with WooCommerce.

If you ship goods to clients, you probably have a database of physical mailing lists as well. As a result, you might expand your marketing efforts through this channel as well.

Ours relates to eCommerce trend #2 on this list, which is about rising advertising expenditures. You have more control over your marketing and advertising expenses if you own your own media. When using internal mailing lists, email, and direct mail both fall under this category and are effective strategies to keep customers and raise lifetime customer value.

7. Brand advocates

Influencer marketing on social media has gained popularity as a new marketing channel. Paying someone to become a brand ambassador might result in significant earnings when you identify someone with a sizable online following, and you believe that their fans will be somewhat aligned with the items in your online store.

And you can monitor this simply since you may offer distinct coupon codes, make unique landing pages, and utilize other strategies that are exclusive to each brand ambassador and possibly even to each campaign you design for them.

8. Financing options

Traditional lenders frequently overlook eCommerce businesses. And that's OK since other financing solutions have developed that are specifically tailored to the demands of online shops and fully comprehend what they require to succeed.

There are several options available if your eCommerce shop is suitable for financing, but revenue-based financing can be the best option. This enables you to repay the loan as a percentage of your daily or monthly income as opposed to a set payment amount. Because your payments will be greater if your firm expands quickly, you'll also be able to repay the loan sooner. Your repayments will drop if you experience a slump in sales.

This adaptable strategy appeals to eCommerce companies because it reduces risk and enables them to remain fluid as they expand.

9. Ecologically sound business methods

Environmental awareness is increasing, especially among younger generations, and these customers seek out companies who are trying to lessen their impact on the environment.

Focusing on your packaging and shipping procedures and materials and selecting ones that have less of an impact on the environment, is a developing eCommerce trend. Additionally, you might be able to improve the efficiency of your production and fulfilment procedures. This may have an impact on how much energy, water, waste, supply chains, and other things are used.

Or you might be able to come up with more ethical ways to deal with returns. Are they reselling able? Give them away? Adapt them in some way?

Add a section about this to you About page or make a new page on your website if you can do anything that benefits your company and the environment. As an additional persuasion tool, you might add a few phrases to your checkout page, such as "All our shipping materials are recyclable."

10. Customized advertising

To personalize, data is needed. Data also needs a mechanism to be organized and accessible in meaningful ways. This is what customer relationship management (CRM) technologies like Jetpack CRM are used for.

You may track client transactions, invoicing, interaction, conversions, and many other crucial indicators with the use of a CRM. Additionally, it enables you to create client profiles that you can afterward utilize to deliver more specialized marketing.

You can speak to each customer's wants and desires considerably more effective if you can personalize, you’re messaging to groups of consumers with comparable interests or life experiences (such as those with kids versus people without kids).

Since the ability to gather data and utilize that data to improve the consumer experience is only becoming better, personalization is a developing eCommerce trend. Additionally, as was already noted, since this is your own data about your existing clients, you are free to utilize it whichever would best serve your marketing and revenue objectives.

Once you start customizing with a CRM, your email marketing and other marketing activities will be a lot more successful.

Discover new trends on your own or by observing others.

While you don't have to follow every trend, keeping an eye on how the eCommerce landscape is developing can enable you to seize the proper chances. If you're always looking for methods to enhance customer service and your business processes, you may even find your own trend!