Top 7 eCommerce trends to look out for your web store in 2017

2016 has been one of the best years for eCommerce industry. It generated almost 1,183 billion USD worth of revenue, and 2017 promises to be even better with more and more people prefer online shopping. The eCommerce industry is expected to grow by 10-12% this year and its revenue growth is expected to be around at 1,250 billion in 2017. See image for details.

As these statistics suggest, retailers and business owners will need to fully embrace digital commerce in order to survive, sustain and thrive in this highly competitive and increasingly global market. Businesses that do not have an online presence should look out for opening an online store. And businesses with up and running eCommerce stores should embrace the digital world and strategize marketing opportunities to boost trade.

If you want to grow your consumer base, revenue and business, then you will need to prep a killer online marketing strategy to avoid falling behind the fierce competition. Take a look at these 7 steps that can help you chalk out a good online eCommerce marketing strategy for your web store.

1. Consumers want to interact socially with their favorite brands

Consumers are far more social and adaptive when it comes to social channels and they freely share content and data with their favorite brands. You can also create a campaign that runs locally and connects with your buyers online with your own eCommerce webstore. Moreover, if you’re a retailer, then big brands will do the spending, to interact with their end-users and you can channelize that to your betterment as a good merchant and distributor.

It has been observed that consumers tend to shop from the same online store again if their experience was positive with it. You can direct your efforts for customer oriented eCommerce services and create a loyal consumer base from your web portal to cross-sell products.

2. Showcasing your products

As per a survey published by KPMG, 92% users regularly read product reviews and comments from other buyers before buying any product for the first time. Uncertainty about correct pricing, perfect fitting and delivery time is a huge obstacle to online purchasing. You can put out all the correct information like color, description, size, content, specification, delivery date and time, to reduce consumer hesitation from purchasing from your store.

**The numbers are project by various surveys done in the past year.

People have multiple devices like Smartphone, tablet, computer- and they expect an online shopping experience that’s easy, fast and user-friendly.

3. Dynamic Shopping Experience in Real-Time

As many researchers have suggested, 2017 will see the emergence of a unique online shopping experience tailored for each consumer. Each shopper will have access to unique content, recommended and target product displays upon their last choices, geographies, local groups, branding, and interactions, all completely automated.

Retailers will have to adjust to this new normal and amend their eCommerce solutions to append real-time data. You can direct your attention to spot these behavioral changes to adopt a unique strategy for each user and target them with collated data from your own Webstore.

4. Predictive Shopping

Predictive analysis is a technology that you should look out for. There are beacons that tell you which user is checking which product’s details and when they arrive in your shop, the amount of money spend and products they are likely to buy. Amazing! Isn’t it? Just look out for their purchase history, preferences and recommend products that are similar to it, but with better pricing.

Accurately predicting your customer’s next purchase will enhance their shopping experience and your profit margins. You will need to adapt your store with latest payment options that can be integrated with your bank.

5. Tapping future technologies and new consumers

As technologies move at a rapid pace, so does the eCommerce platforms. You will need to carefully consider which platform you will use to build, develop and upgrade your eCommerce website. You can choose from Magento, Big Commerce, Zen Cart or Shopify to meet your needs.

The new generations of consumers are hooked with instant messaging and communication that cater to their unique demands. They’re using latest devices that enable them to use advanced mobile technologies like RFID, NFC, Geo-location and paying through mobile wallets.

6. Unified Commerce

Merging your current commerce with eCommerce will be the next logical step you should consider in 2017. You will need to integrate your store with a centralized infrastructure to integrate your products for sale in real-time.

Now, as each eCommerce platform works differently, you will need to select the correct platform to put up your web-store. You can read our blog on how to build a great eCommerce website to build an exquisite experience for your consumers.

7. Creating Mobile and Device friendly eCommerce websites

As more and more people are going mobile, it is expected that they will want to purchase and consume things on their devices like phones, tablets and even wearable like watches. To cater to their needs, you will need to ensure that your web store is device friendly, and integrate seamlessly with screens of every size. Or if you think, you can do just alright with website only web-store, then think again! You may just ensure a failure of your eCommerce website and with it your online business.

If you want to avoid crashes or lack a coherent strategy for your eCommerce website, then you should consult with a good eCommerce company that creates dynamic and customized eCommerce websites at reasonable prices. You can create a new web-store with latest features that can attract new consumers and upgrade the current ones to sustain and engage current users.

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