High tech is here

Same-day delivery is here. Drone delivery is here. Today’s consumer demands instant gratification, and the idea of searching on a mobile phone for a product from anywhere, buying it with the touch of a button, and having it delivered to you that very same day is inching closer to the new normal.

Online shopping for countless products could now become even simpler than (and almost as fast as) ordering a pizza for delivery.

Revolutionary logistics management

Retailers like Amazon are leading the way in this revolution of e-commerce logistics. But you don’t have to have a billion dollar revenue scheme and an army of drones to take advantage of this e-commerce trend. We are also seeing other alternative logistics management strategies, such as using small showrooms allowing customers to interact with a product before buying it online, and designated drop-off points. These smaller stores also help large chains expand their reach by making their products more easily accessible to a larger consumer population.

Some e-commerce businesses are even partnering with rideshare services such as Uber instead of relying on traditional package delivery companies. And, of course, there are the drone deliveries, which are being tested in select locations this year.

In the following infographic we can observe that to buy different types of products online it is important that the delivery process is carried out immediately for users in the United States, China, and Germany.

Blockchain technology for online payments

Blockchain is still on the cutting edge – so much so that many people are only hearing this buzz-term for the first time in 2017. But there are signs that this will be the year that blockchain technology becomes more widely implemented for e-commerce online payments.

You may be familiar with the cryptocurrency Bitcoin which is traded through blockchain, essentially a cheat-proof ledger that authenticates and monitors financial transactions. People who have adopted this cryptocurrency appreciate the fact that the blockchain creates a secure and decentralized control system. The blockchain record is traceable and permanent, making it more transparent than traditional payment systems. Each unit of Bitcoin currency has a digital paper trail that follows it for its entire life through the blockchain.

More and more e-commerce websites are choosing to accept Bitcoin currency as a form of payment, and the trend is even expanding its reach into brick-and-mortar stores through Bitcoin enabled POS terminals. For businesses whose brand image centers around social responsibility, using a blockchain system could allow customers to track the product they are about to buy, from source materials to the e-commerce store.

Advances in virtual reality and augmented reality

Artificial intelligence isn’t the only technological development that is shaping e-commerce. Virtual reality and augmented reality will be playing an increasingly important role in 2017. These technologies are already taking the gaming world by storm (e.g. the Pokémon Go phenomenon), but there is absolutely no reason for VR and AR to be limited to a single industry like gaming.

Believe it or not, it may soon be possible to shop online using virtual reality. For example, a store based in VR, where customers just have to move their head in order to buy an item. Customers would get the in-store shopping experience without having to leave home, with the benefits of feeling as if they are able to see, touch and interact with products in real life. This is likely to be a reality by the end of 2017.

Augmented reality, on the other hand, promises to give customers greater confidence when shopping online by allowing them to virtually try the product before purchasing it. Imagine Pokémon Go, everyone’s favorite AR game that lets you see fictional creatures in your real-life environment, and extend that to any experience where you would want to see how something looks in real-life surroundings.

This chart illustrates the market size of AR / VR prediction software for different sectors in 2025.

What does 2017 have in store for e-commerce?

It’s almost impossible to say with certainty where technology will take us by the end of this year. We don’t have any historical precedents for what is happening with e-commerce and the digital revolution to be able to make any sure-fire predictions. The positive feedback loop between consumers and e-commerce technology appears to be following in the footsteps of technology itself, developing at an exponentially faster pace as time goes by.

Already, we are seeing changes that would have been right at home in a science fiction novel just five years ago.

Packages delivered by drones the same day you order them online? Walking through a store while sitting at home on your couch with a virtual reality headset on? All of these new e-commerce developments are impressive enough in their own right, and even more so when you consider that online shopping has only been mainstream for less than 20 years.

Whatever the trends may be this year, or next year, there seems to be an inevitable destination: the merging of the digital and physical realms, giving consumers the best of both worlds.

Catch part 1 and 2 of this series to view all 10 trends revolutionizing e-commerce in 2017.

The post The future is here! How e-commerce will continue to revolutionize retail in 2017 (Part 3) appeared first on Trade Ready.

It’s all about you

After two decades of data collection, analysis and trial and error, e-commerce has reached a point where, for the first time in history, mobile web traffic exceeds desktop traffic. Most consumers own multiple devices, most of which are mobile, and more than half of consumers in the U.S. prefer online shopping to traditional brick-and-mortar shopping. Among Millennials, those born roughly between 1984 and 2000, that number jumps to 67%.

So, what does this mean for e-commerce in the near-term? From personalized shopping experiences to drone delivery, e-commerce is radically changing the way we think about the shopping experience at a breakneck pace. Ten clear trends have already emerged for e-commerce in 2017. We covered the first three in part one of this three-part article series, and the next four are outlined here.

Gone are the days when Customer A and Customer B would go to an e-commerce website and have the same shopping experience. As a matter of fact, in 2017 we are already seeing situations where in February, Customer A won’t even have the same experience that they had in January.

That’s because industry leaders have realized that in order to compete with other retailers, both online and in-store, they have to offer their customers a unique experience that delivers on their own personal needs and expectations.

Retailers know that in the competitive online space, they need to make it all about you.

Real-time personalized shopping experience

This is the advent of real-time customization of the shopping experience, a form of context-based e-commerce. Every customer will, in theory, have an online shopping experience that is as unique as they are. Features such as product recommendations and extras tailored to the customer’s preferences, demographic information, purchase history, and physical location will become the norm.

E-commerce businesses can use this strategy to offer special deals based on what they know (or can reasonably expect) a specific customer is interested in. Being able to promote the right product to the right person, in the right place and at the right time, will be vital for businesses to maintain a competitive advantage.

The idea here is that any targeted recommendations or promotions are so spot-on that they feel completely natural to the consumer. When executed correctly, this sort of customized experience shouldn’t feel intrusive, but rather like going to your favorite local shop where the employees know you by name, and exactly what you like.

Featured Tools:

• Real-time conversion Analytics
• Personalized email
• Feedback (always in touch with users)
• Exit popups (personalize engagement)
• Recommendation (product offers)
• Personalized shopping cart
• A/B tests (based on connected user data)
• Social media (deep engagement)

Predictive analysis thanks to Big Data

The amount of consumer data that is collected, aggregated and analyzed has already changed our experience when surfing the web or browsing our social media sites. And now, it’s changing e-commerce business’ ability to predict what their customers’ next purchases will be.

Data collected through the profiles customers create, their interactions with the brand, their purchasing habits, and the data aggregated from similar customer profiles can help target customers with exactly the right product.

This can be applied over the short-term and long-term. For example, by studying consumer purchasing habits over the course of a year, an e-commerce business could adjust its seasonal offerings more successfully thanks to predictive analysis. Simple ways to get access to a vast amount of information for this strategy include online customer profiles, loyalty cards, linking to social media accounts, etc.

Obviously, recommending or promoting the very product that your customer was already thinking about buying is an excellent way to improve conversion rates and reduce shopping cart abandonment online. But this can also be used in a business-to-business (B2B) environment with potentially lucrative results thanks to the larger orders and more complex sales cycles in B2B.

One of the priorities of 2017 will be to acquire data in real time. This technology will be necessary for the launch of a new product or to schedule the publication of new marketing or advertising content. Amazon is the largest e-commerce company in the world, the most outstanding activities, Amazon Web Services (Amazon Cloud), continue to dominate the market with a continuous growth of ideas.

According to Statista, Amazon had a 40% share in the cloud infrastructure market in 2016.

Unified commerce: the fusion of offline and online

Unified commerce is the natural evolution of an increasingly important digital presence in a traditional retail environment. It is the merging of commerce and e-commerce into one all-encompassing entity. Rather than businesses having their brick-and-mortar infrastructure and then adding a separate digital infrastructure to it, these two modalities will be integrated into a single unified experience.

Today’s consumers increasingly value convenience. We want and expect to be able to get whatever we want, whenever and wherever we want it. A unified commerce mentality will allow businesses to give customers the freedom that they demand. And many businesses are aware of this; a recent survey indicated that about 85% of businesses consider unified commerce to be a high-priority goal.

Mentally, consumers don’t treat a brick-and-mortar store, an online store, and the store’s social media accounts as separate elements, but rather as appendages of a single, unified brand.

Brands must adopt this same mentality in 2017, and take advantage of today’s reliable and affordable network technology to integrate the various channels of their business.

Having an integrated infrastructure also allows businesses to allocate their human resources more efficiently, for example, by making the knowledge of one expert employee accessible to other employees in other locations via a mobile device.

CMS “open source” e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Prestashop and Woocommerce are free, and allow you to simplify orders and be flexible, manage multiple stores, select different languages, and offer payments in different currencies.

Social eCommerce

Social media platforms have become the newest growing sales channels evolving to allow companies to collect information and increase brand awareness. In the near future a button for “Buy” and “Add to cart”, as well as the issuance of individual search queries will be added.

According to Statista, here is the ranking of the most used platforms for the purchase of products among users of social networks in the U.S. in May 2016.

• Pinterest 55%
• Facebook 12%
• Instagram 12%
• Twitter 9%
• LinkedIn 5%
• Snapchat 3%

In the survey sited, 55% responded that they used the Pinterest network to purchase their products; 12% used Facebook to do the same.

The graph shows the results of a global survey of 23,000 users, 78% of whom are influenced by social networks at the time of purchase, affecting the behavior of the purchase.

Stay tuned for the third and final article of this series to see what else is in store for e-commerce this year.

The post The future is here! How e-commerce will continue to revolutionize retail in 2017 (Part 2) appeared first on Trade Ready.

E is for Effortless

It’s no secret that the relationship between brands and consumers is undergoing some dramatic transformations. A positive feedback loop between technological advances and consumer expectations is shaping the business world, and will continue to do so in 2017.

What do I mean by positive feedback loop? Well, consider the changing attitudes consumers have about shopping today, compared to 20 years ago; those attitudes didn’t just appear out of the ether. Most of us got our first taste of online shopping in the late 1990s or early 2000s, in its precursory form. Early e-commerce retailers, like Amazon, that made strides to improve and expand that experience attracted more customers, who almost immediately began to take those improvements for granted and look for the next big thing.

After two decades of this tug and pull between e-commerce technology and consumer expectations, we have reached a point where, for the first time in history, mobile web traffic exceeds desktop traffic. Most consumers own multiple devices, most of which are mobile, and more than half of consumers in the U.S. prefer online shopping to traditional brick-and-mortar shopping. Among Millennials, those born roughly between 1984 and 2000, that number jumps to 67%.

So, what does this mean for e-commerce in the near-term? Although we are still early in the year, at least 10 clear trends have already emerged in this sector for 2017.

From personalized shopping experiences to drone delivery, e-commerce is radically changing the way we think about the shopping experience at a breakneck pace.

At the same time the competition is growing faster than the market. This means that you must consider the 10 emerging trends outlined in this 3 part article series, to remain competitive with your e-commerce business.

The following chart shows the growth of e-commerce sales worldwide since 2014, and projections up to 2020. According to Statista  in 2015, sales climbed to $US 1.55 trillion, with a growth projection in e-retail revenue of $3.4 trillion in 2019.

1. Amazon Dash Buttons

Amazon introduced two new e-commerce services for the first time early in 2016: Amazon Dash buttons and the Amazon Dash Replenishment service. Amazon Dash Buttons are Wi-Fi connected devices that connects directly to Amazon Prime members’ accounts and can reorder favourite products activated by a single touch. Users can purchase a physical Dash button for their frequently ordered products or use virtual Dash Buttons on their mobile devices. .

Amazon Dash Replenishment is a service for all IoT connected home appliances. This application can automatically place a customer’s order when it senses a product is nearing depletion. Charges will be automatically applied to the user’s card and ship fast, and for free.

The Dash Replenishment button is a part of Amazon’s great vision for forecasting their customers’ and automating the buying process. Look for other e-commerce companies to follow Amazon’s lead in this area.

2. Expanding mobile payment methods

Just like debit card technology has all but made writing checks an anachronism, new advances in mobile payment technology will soon make wallets a thing of the past.

The magic of contactless payments using nothing but your smartphone is catching on in a big way, and mobile payments are on the rise.

Several businesses that were early adopters of this technology have already seen significant revenue increases as a result.

But these payments will no longer be limited to the world of smartphones. Rather than reaching into a pocket to pull out a phone and pay, more streamlined and wearable devices are ready to pick up the baton. Smart watches, smart rings and similar accessories will continue to gain popularity this year, making this method of payment even easier.

Being equipped to handle mobile payments will be a major advantage for brick-and-mortar businesses in 2017, as consumers opt to replace their traditional wallet with a mobile equivalent. Our lives are increasingly being shifted onto our mobile devices, and e-commerce as a whole is beginning to adopt a mantra of “mobile first” as opposed to “optimized for mobile”.

The world’s largest mobile phone companies have launched their electronic purses, including Google Wallet, Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. Google Wallet and Apple Pay reported that the number of users is increasing by one million per week..

This chart shows mobile payment income in 2015 was $US 450 million and is forecast to double by the year 2019.

3. Chatbots: artificial intelligence at your service

People often complain about the frustrating experience of using an automated telephone customer service system. But what if the customer service experience could be both automated and positive? Major advances in artificial intelligence are leading to the development of chatbots so effective that some consumers actually prefer them to real human interactions.

The most obvious benefits of using chatbots and AI for an e-commerce business are that bots can be accessed by your customers 24/7, and they don’t need to be paid a salary. But there are even more advantages that can be extrapolated from what we know about the effects of live chat services on websites. For example, customers who use the live chat on an e-commerce website spend 5-30% more on average than those who don’t, and the likelihood of making a sales conversation after chat increases 5-10x.

E-commerce stores aren’t limited to their own websites, either.

Increasingly, brands are meeting their younger customers where they are already spending most of their time: social media.

E-commerce chatbots can be integrated in chat apps like Kik and Facebook Messenger, creating what has been coined“conversational commerce”.

This social media integration trend has already transformed the way business is done in China, where 65% of online shoppers report that they shop using their mobile device at least once per month. Some have gone so far as to rebrand e-commerce as “m-commerce”, highlighting the critical role mobile technology plays in this evolving sector.

Microsoft, Facebook and Google, use ChatBot technology.   Companies are also taking advantage of the Facebook Messenger Bot, such as fast food chains Pizza Hut and Burger King. Other businesses are adopting similar systems such as the Slack platform, and Taco Bell for introduced their TacoBot to order food using this technology.

Microsoft believes that the bots could expand their functions beyond text bots, also interacting with users through video and holograms in the near future.

The digital revolution is changing every aspect of our lives, so it’s no surprise that it has its fingers in the world of e-commerce.

Whatever the trends may be this year, or next year, there seems to be an inevitable destination: the merging of the digital and physical realms, giving consumers the best of both worlds.

Stay tuned for part 2 and part 3 to see what else is in store for e-commerce this year.

The post The future is here! 10 ways e-commerce will continue to revolutionize retail in 2017 (Part 1) appeared first on Trade Ready.