It is undeniable that online shopping has developed into an independent and essential branch of business. This is the reason why you should pay particular attention to launching your e-commerce store.
There are several steps you should follow while creating an e-commerce website:
- choose a product;
- create a business plan;
- define the required investments;
- aim on customer experience;
- remember about social promotion.
Several years ago you could create an online variation of your store, and it worked well. However, modern customers need much more than just buying your product. They expect online shopping to provide an entirely new experience. Therefore, e-commerce websites should be interactive and enjoyable.
At the same time, modern technologies can create new possibilities to satisfy customers. Using them you can create an e-commerce website to fulfill any desire and taste. As a result, online shopping will become more convenient and exciting for the customer. Moreover, it will increase your income.
In 2019, even more vendors are planning to sell their products online. E-commerce is developing continuously, therefore it is very important to be in trend. There are some tendencies vital for your e-commerce business in 2019. In our material, you will learn about the most promising E-commerce trends.
AI And Chatbots
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can change the way your company communicates with customers. Chatbots can perform typical communication with customers and facilitate the work of your employees. Furthermore, they can effectively gather information for further analysis.
In 2019, chatbots will be essential for an e-commerce store. Firstly, they will sufficiently speed up the communication with customers. It helps to optimize the time your users spend on choosing and ordering. This approach shows your customer that your company cares about their time and experience.
What's more, the development of AI means that chatbots are now able to learn new things. Even now they can understand live speech, analyze orders and predict the next ones. Consider using chatbots to streamline your communication with clients.
Multichannel And Social Networks
Many people use their smartphones for online shopping. Therefore, your e-commerce store should become multichannel. Communicate with customers in social media, grant them the possibility to purchase goods on social network pages. Your customers will be satisfied if they can access your store on any channel available.
Voice Search
Another technology which developed thanks to the popularity of smartphones is voice search. Even now it is a common way to search the web, and it is believed that in the following years the popularity of this technology will increase. Therefore we recommend taking it into account while developing your e-commerce business.
Enhanced Shipping Options
The classical to-door delivery scheme can work great, however, you should be open for more enhanced shipping options. Nowadays many companies grant their customers the possibility to receive their order the same day. Moreover, in some cases, the delivery can be shortened even to 2-hour limit (in areas with good transport access).
The delivery service is an important part of your business; therefore, it should be quick and efficient. Many people are interested in same day delivery, so e-commerce stores should provide such an option.
Invest in making your delivery as fast as possible. You can learn from the experience of Amazon, which started using drones in England. In any case, you should consider any possibility to improve the delivery process for your e-commerce store in 2019.
Augmented Reality for Product Visualization
Customers always want to receive the fullest and most detailed information about the future purchase. Therefore an e-commerce store should provide the items with more informative description. Amazing visualization can help to recreate all the details of your products.
One option for you is to offer some videos showing your products in action. However, you can go even further in the creation of product visualization.
3D technologies can help your customers to receive real-life experience during online shopping. All you need is to create a 3D visualization of your products, which will present all their features. The modern 3D visualizations can even reconstruct some features which are hard to represent, such as transparent and textured objects. As a result, you can recreate the detailed view of your products regardless of its material.
Application of such technologies will increase customer’s engagement in your website. Therefore, product visualization can be beneficial for any e-commerce platform.
A modern e-commerce platform should provide multiple payment options. The customer should have the possibility to pay in a way convenient to them, even using digital money or cryptocurrency. Furthermore, people should have a pleasant experience while paying for their orders.
Make your online store adaptable, so each customer will receive personalized service. Analyze users’ actions and define preferences in orders and payment methods. If the platform can remember previous purchases, it will be able to offer customers those products which may be interesting for them.
Such an automated system helps your customer to get a better experience from online shopping. At the same time, it can be beneficial for new product promotions.
Advanced Product Filtering
What you can do to make your customer's experience even more exciting? Provide them with advanced filtering options, so they can quickly find the required product. Make it possible to choose different filter attributes like color, size or price.
Remember to test your advanced product filtering to understand if it works well.
There are four criteria of good filter performance:
- logic – the filter order should be natural to follow;
- availability – the number of variables to describe the product;
- application – how filters work together;
- interface – good access to select and sort filters.
In 2019, build your e-commerce website to help customers conveniently find what they are looking for.
The Bottom Line
E-commerce provides excellent opportunities for business due to an increase in popularity among customers. Therefore, it is a great time for businesses to develop online stores and join the e-commerce competition. Furthermore, in 2019, e-commerce will provide many new methods and technologies to attract customers and increase profit.
Now you know much more about developing your e-commerce business in 2019. Remember that new technologies such as artificial intelligence and 3D visualization can rise online shopping to an entirely new level. We hope that our analysis of the e-commerce trends will help you to surpass your competitors. Just get in touch!