With 2018 quickly becoming a memory, it is time to shift focus to what's on the horizon. Here are our predictions for the top 2019 Ecommerce Trends.
Once again, the ecommerce industry has experienced growth and has surpassed expectations. According to Statista, global retail ecommerce revenue is on a path to hit $4.88 trillion by 2021.
As ecommerce continues to soar, competition will follow as
more businesses realize it is time to get on board. This means there is no time
like right now to bring you’re A game to the field.
It is time to ensure you are informed and knowledgeable in
the latest ecommerce trends. Don’t ignore advancements in technology and stay
up-to-date on your customers preferences and shopping behaviors.
In order to be successful, we recommend becoming familiar
trends that will emerge in 2019. Use this overview to make 2019 your year!
2019 Ecommerce Trend #1: Multi-Channel Selling
The last few years have shown us that people are using more
than one channel to make their purchases online. The 2018 Omnichannel Buying Report, showed 87% of
consumers in the US shop offline. 78% of the survey respondents reported making
a purchase on Amazon, 45% in a branded store online, 65% in a brick-and-mortar
store, 34% on eBay, and 11% on Facebook.
According to the same report, consumers spend 69% of their
discretionary income to shop in-store. Also, 56% of Gen Z makes purchases from
brick-and-mortar stores.
These numbers show just how profitable it can be for
ecommerce merchants to cater to the needs of omni-channel shoppers. So, we
should expect to see a rise in multi-channel selling in the coming year.
This is not the time to sit back. The only way to see continued growth is to make yourself available across all of the channels that your shoppers use.
Be sure to utilize:
- Your website
- Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest
- Popular channels like eBay, Amazon, and Google Shopping
- An of course, brick-and-mortar if applicable
2019 Ecommerce Trend #2: Omni-Channel Personalization
Omni-channel personalization is predicted to see a lot of
growth in 2019. According an Epsilon study to 80% of respondents said that
personalized experiences make them more likely to do business with a company.
And 90% find personalization appealing. Furthermore, an Evergage study found that personalization has advanced
customer relationships for 98% of marketers. 88% believe that their customers
and prospects expect to get a personalized experience.
Sounds like a winner, however you must also have the ability
to provide a solid brand experience by personalizing your interactions for each
customer across all of those channels. In other words, you need to recognize
the customer as the very same person across all your channels.
Otherwise, you could end up offering irrelevant experiences,
which can be too intrusive or annoying. And it’s a well-known fact that
personalization is imperative for the success of businesses today.
However, there is still a huge challenge when it comes to
offering a seamless personalized experience across all channels:
- Only 27% of marketers in the study are syncing half or more of their channels
- 46% have managed to connect only a few channels
- And 27% don’t have any of their channels connected
There’s a huge opportunity for you to get ahead of your
competitors by personalizing customer experiences across all channels.
- Predictive targeting can help you identify a visitor and then match the right experience for them. This optimizes the customer experience on various channels
- Personalize customer interactions in real-time. You can combine omni-channel personalization, content recommendations, and real-time messaging to deliver exceptional customer experience
2019 Ecommerce Trend #3: Smarter Payment Processing
The payment process is the final step in the customer
journey, and it is a vital stage that could make or break a conversion. Your customer
has gone through multiple stages, including awareness and consideration, and
has finally made the decision to buy your product.
Screwing up at this stage, meaning if the payment isn’t
effortless and smooth, you could lose the potential customer.
According to the Baymard
Institute, almost 70% of shoppers abandon their carts even after
researching and considering products thoroughly and adding them to their cart.
Completing the payment process seems to be the biggest challenge.
The same Baynard
Institute research showed that 28% of cart abandonment occurs because of a long
or complicated checkout process. Additionally, 13% of
shoppers will abandon their purchases if there’s no local
payment option. If you want to expand your business globally, you will need to
offer a better payment solution for shoppers in other countries.
One solution to this
is to consolidate your payments into a single platform. This makes it easier
for you to manage all your payments regardless of currency and platform.
However, compliance
and regulatory challenges could make it difficult for you to create a single
payment platform. That’s why 84%
of European retailers are considering the use of third-party
service providers.
It becomes obvious that if you want to truly compete in 2019
you will need to ensure a smoother checkout process with an easy payment option
that will ensure quick conversions.
2019 Ecommerce Trend #4: Dropshipping
Before you stop everything and believe all the hype, know
that like any other online business model, dropshipping business is not easy.
Dropshipping requires the same work, patience, testing, failing, adjusting to
be successful. It takes more than creating a store and thinking you will get
rich right away. For many new to the world of ecommerce, the belief is that it
simply makes money. They forget the research and effort.
Remember spending $15,000 in ads to make $10,000 is not how
you make money dropshipping.
Dropshipping can be a profitable business model for
ecommerce businesses start-ups lacking up-front capital to start with. Basically,
it involves acting as the middleman between the manufacturer or supplier and
the customer.
You process the purchase, but the product gets shipped
directly to the buyer without you actually handling the physical product.
This business model is easy to start, involves less risk and
has many advantages:
- You’re only going to buy the product after a customer places an order
- You don’t have to spend money on storing inventory
- You’ll have lower overhead costs
The 2018
State of the Merchant eCommerce Report found that out of 450
online stores, 16.4% were using dropshipping.
Businesses using this model experienced an average revenue
growth of 32.7% and had an average conversion rate of 1.74%.
Due to these obvious benefits, we are likely to see a lot more of dropshipping in the future, and that's why it's one of our 2019 Ecommerce trends.
Dropshipping is particularly useful for selling bulky items
that can take up a lot of space in warehouses and stores. That’s exactly why
leading stores like Home Depot and Macy’s have adopted the business model to
broaden their online reach, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Sure, dropshipping has the potential to be profitable, but
there are some challenges to keep in mind:
- Without the control over when and how the seller ships the product, the shipping duration may be much longer than desired.
- There is always the chance that unprofessional or unethical sellers could negatively affect the customer experience. You must vet your sellers and be informed of all of their practices.
To address this challenge, there are platforms like Oberlo
to run your dropshipping store with ease. Oberlo connects you with verified
suppliers from all over the world and allows you to ship the product straight
from the warehouse to the customer in a single click.
2019 Ecommerce Trend #5: Custom Packaging
Believe it or not, Customers tend to perceive packaging as a
part of the product. A Dotcom
Distribution study, found that 68% of shoppers felt that a brand
became more upscale due to its packaging and 61% of the shoppers even claimed
that seeing unique packaging made them more excited about the product.
Using the results of this research, a great way to grow your
customer base and get ahead of your competition is to provide custom packaging
to make your brand or store more recognizable.
2019 Ecommerce Trends: Final Thoughts
The ecommerce industry will continue to transform this year and in the many years to follow. So take a deep breath, consider our 2019 Ecommerce trends, do your research and your ecommerce business will be in the path to a happy and profitable new year!