Top 6 Ecommerce Trends

Ecommerce Marketing
Written By Igor Avidon

The main ecommerce trends this year are reflections of several key global dynamics and their effects on consumers' spending priorities. We’re seeing a near-complete return to "normality" post-COVID, customers are increasingly concerned about the environment, there is greater awareness about the collection and use of customer data, and new technologies are transforming the online shopping experience.

In this landscape, it's essential for ecommerce businesses to identify ways in which their current offerings fall short of online shoppers' expectations and to leverage tools and strategies that can help them remain competitive. Going about this in a strategic way—and measuring each strategy's effectiveness—is the best way to grow your online sales in 2023 and beyond.

Economic Uncertainty Affects Shopper Behavior

Inflation, rising interest rates, rising prices, and fears of a recession are affecting consumer behavior when shopping online. According to data from 2022-2023, the majority of consumers are:

Additionally:

  • While around two-thirds of consumers appear to be taking the "quality over quantity" route, around one-third of consumers "switched to cheaper options for clothes and basic goods," according to statistics published in the Reuters article linked above.

As these statistics and data from previous recessions have shown, retail brands that want to grow need to cater to both crowds: the intentional shoppers and the shoppers who need to watch their pennies. The following strategies can be especially effective.

Tips for Marketing to Intentional Shoppers

  • Capitalize on the quality of your goods. If you offer high-quality, durable products, put this value proposition front and center in your content marketing campaigns and use social proof in the form of ratings, testimonials, certifications, press coverage, and awards to demonstrate that these claims are true. While a few customers might decide to switch to a cheaper brand, "quality over quantity" shoppers will find this attractive.

  • Explain what sets your business apart. Knowing that 90% of people price-check on Amazon when they shop online, it can be tempting to lower your prices to try to compete. However, it's far better to focus on what makes you unique—for example, the fact that your products are made by hand, that your goods can be personalized, that your business is family-owned, or that a percentage of every sale goes to charity—to show customers that it’s worth paying more.

  • Don't lower your prices. Intentional shoppers will still make purchases if they perceive that your products are high quality. Lowering your prices only lowers the perceived value of your goods and devalues your industry as a whole. If you have excess stock that you want to move, take advantage of sales opportunities like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or the pre-holiday period to offer discounts for a limited time.

Tips for Marketing to Low and Middle-Income Earners

  • Offer a line of economical products in your online store. When times get tough, low to middle-income earners often don't have the luxury of choosing quality over quantity. Make it easier for these customers to make online purchases by offering a line of "affordable basics" that are competitive and durable without cutting too far into your margins.

There’s a Shift to the Next Buyer Generation

According to statistics from Connected Retail 2023, CI&T, October 2022, millennials and Gen Z shoppers now account for 32% of the total retail spend in the U.S. These groups are digitally connected and have some unique characteristics that are important to keep in mind when you’re marketing products to these generations online.

Social Commerce

Social commerce refers to sales made via social media channels, including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, and so on. To give you an idea of how important social commerce is in 2023:

  • According to the Q1 2023 Sprout Pulse survey, 47% of respondents said that they planned to use shopping features within social media platforms, such as Facebook Shops, Instagram Shops, and TikTok Shopping.

To help you get started with social commerce, we've created a guide to growing your ecommerce store using Facebook. Keep in mind that the strategy you'll use for selling through each of the social media platforms must be tailored to the unique characteristics of each individual platform.

Omnichannel Commerce

Whereas multichannel commerce typically involves a brick-and-mortar store and an ecommerce website, omnichannel commerce refers to a business approach in which customers can "shop anywhere."

According to research by Aberdeen Group Inc. (published in 2013), companies with robust omnichannel strategies retain almost 89% of their customers compared to 33% retention for companies with weak omnichannel strategies.

With an omnichannel business model, customers can buy the exact same products and enjoy the same shopping experience in-store, on your website, on social media, on Amazon, on Google Shopping, and everywhere else that people shop.

In addition, the customer's journey is linked and tracked so that they can start shopping on social media, for example, and finalize the purchase on your ecommerce website. Understanding the buyer's journey across channels is key to making this strategy a success.

Mobile Shopping

According to data from Activate Technology & Media Outlook 2023 (cited in New Consumer’s Consumer Trends 2023 report), the average American spends 13 hours per day using digital media or technology. To reach today's shoppers, therefore, it's essential to design a mobile-first approach to ecommerce and make it as easy as possible for customers to purchase products on their phones.

For example, you can (and should):

  • Optimize your website to display correctly on mobile devices, including pop-ups

  • Offer convenient digital payment options, including digital wallets, mobile wallets, text-to-pay, WhatsApp Pay (selected countries only), and one-click purchases

  • Offer conversational shopping features that allow customers to make purchases while messaging with a member of your team

  • Offer livestream shopping features that allow customers to make a purchase while watching a livestream product demonstration on social media

Voice Shopping

Young people aged 18 to 34 are the most likely to use voice search technology, according to 2023 statistics from Demand Sage. To optimize your website for voice shopping:

  1. Prioritize phrases that feature question words like "what," "where," "which," and "how much" as part of your ecommerce SEO strategy. 

  1. Provide succinct, one-sentence answers to what/where/which/how/how much questions in your on-page copy to increase your chances of these answers being featured in rich snippets. Rich snippets are frequently selected for voice search results.

If you need help optimizing your website for both text and voice search, an ecommerce SEO expert can help.

Experiences, Family, and Wellness Are Priority

While businesses need to market to mobile-connected young people, the near-complete loosening of restrictions after the COVID-19 pandemic is creating a thirst for in-person experiences and in-store shopping opportunities. Additionally, the focus on both family and wellness that was forged during the pandemic is continuing to influence purchases in 2023.

  • According to statistics published in Retail Wire, spending on restaurant meals, travel, and live events in 2022 surpassed pre-COVID levels.

Some businesses that can't connect with customers in person (due to geographical distance) are incorporating augmented reality and virtual reality tools to make the shopping experience more “physical” without a brick-and-mortar store.

How Ecommerce Businesses Can Meet the Need

  • Craft your marketing campaigns around customers' current priorities. When crafting your message and developing marketing campaigns, find an angle that speaks to the priorities of family, experiences, and wellness. For example:

  • A brand that sells pet goods could focus on how these goods can help families enjoy the great outdoors with their pets.

  • A brand that sells biodegradable plates and cutlery could create content about table settings for family gatherings, ideas for family picnics, sustainable travel tips, and the like.

  • Integrate your online and offline stores. In the post-pandemic world, customers still appreciate the convenience of online shopping as well as having the option to shop in-store. Business owners can take advantage of this fact by developing ecommerce sites (if they previously operated only in person) or by opening pop-up shops if they previously operated solely online.

  • Keep your branding consistent. The branding across your physical locations and online platforms should be consistent to promote trust and foster brand loyalty.

  • Use an inventory management system. Integrated inventory management software is essential to ensure that the stock levels displayed online and in-store are synchronized in real-time to prevent customer disappointment and frustration.

  • Consider ways to make your products more "real" to customers. Businesses that operate solely online can make the experience more real for customers with the help of emerging digital tools.

  • Augmented reality tools allow the customer to visualize a certain piece of furniture in their home or see what they would look like wearing an ecommerce brand’s beauty products.

  • Virtual reality tools allow customers to walk through your "virtual" store and view items in three dimensions.

Concerns for Sustainability, Ethics, and Data

According to surveys, customers in 2023 are expressing two important concerns:

  1. Sustainability and ethics in manufacturing

  2. The collection and use of customer data when shopping online

Ethical Shopping Practices and Sustainability

The growing acknowledgment of climate change, environmental destruction, and unethical practices being hidden in supply chains, coupled with a shift in priorities during the pandemic, have put ethics and sustainability front and center in both electronic and in-person commerce.

While customers want to support sustainable and ethical brands, they're wary of "green-washing" practices like the purchase of carbon offsets (rather than actually lowering emissions), loose interpretations of the words "natural" and "all-natural," the use of green-colored logos, and the use of ethical practices on-site while the impact of supply chains is ignored.

If you want to market your brand as sustainable or ethical, you need to back these claims up with measurable, concrete actions at every level of the supply chain. For example, you could:

  1. Make your products, product packaging, and shipping materials recyclable, biodegradable, and/or compostable.

  2. Be transparent about the ingredients and materials you use and their safety profile for human and environmental health. Where possible, try to find safer materials and ingredients that are still as effective as your current ingredients.

  3. Use non-polluting energy sources in your facilities and work with a carbon-neutral or (preferably) non-polluting shipping provider.

  4. Accept used-product returns for fixing, recycling, upcycling, and resale (the latter is becoming known as "re-commerce").

  5. Be transparent about your supply chain.

  6. Ensure that all workers involved in your supply chain receive a fair wage and safe working conditions and that your overseas factories don't use any unethical practices, such as sourcing primary materials from protected or indigenous lands, cutting down native forests, polluting local water channels, employing children, using slave labor, etc.

  7. Give a percentage of each purchase to charities that help people and the planet.

  8. Volunteer for a local cause and encourage your employees (and customers) to do so as well.

With all of these suggestions, it’s essential to:

  • Be realistic about the measures your business can sustain over the long term.

  • Make sure that product quality and fulfillment aren’t compromised.

  • Communicate your efforts in a way that attracts sustainability and ethically-minded customers without alienating any of your existing customers. Personalized marketing is a great way to achieve this!

The Collection and Use of Customer Data

In addition to ethics and sustainability, customers are also concerned about the ethical use of their data. In 2022, at least one respected media source published an article about the sale of customer data, leading some people to think twice about signing up for loyalty programs for fear that their data would be sold to a third party.

To reassure your customers and build trust, provide clear, visible information on your website about:

  • Your cookie policy

  • Your privacy policy

  • Your data policy

If your loyalty program was created to genuinely recognize and reward customers (rather than to collect and sell their data), consider implementing a data policy that prohibits the sharing and sale of customer data to third parties, or at a minimum, gives customers an option to select "don't sell my data" when they sign up for an account.

High Expectations for Online Shopping

Notwithstanding economic concerns and post-pandemic priorities, customer expectations are higher than ever when it comes to the actual online shopping experience.

Accessible Web Design

To convert traffic into sales, your ecommerce website must be fast-loading, easy to navigate, and incorporate accessibility features for ecommerce like large-text options, text-to-voice, voice-to-text, and high-contrast icons.

Relationship and Personalization

When shopping online, customers expect personalized shopping experiences, fast responses to their questions, opportunities to provide feedback, and rewards for their loyalty.

  • Brands can create personalized shopping experiences using artificial intelligence-based apps. For best results, brands should adopt strategic data labeling practices to help these tools become more accurate.

  • Brands can personalize their marketing emails and loyalty programs using customer relationship management software. Emails that feature customers' names and are relevant to each customer's purchase history are much more likely to be opened and read.

  • Businesses should provide customer support with multiple points of contact, such as instant messaging, telephone, and email support during hours, and chatbot support after hours.

  • Businesses can foster customer loyalty with subscription services, loyalty programs, and surveys, and use feedback to improve their operations and increase customer satisfaction.

Convenient Digital Payments

Businesses that offer more payment options make more sales. In 2023, we're seeing a rise in alternative payment methods and payment arrangements like buy now pay later (BNPL).

While it's neither feasible nor necessary to offer every payment method that exists, businesses should prioritize the payment methods that the majority of their customers prefer and be prepared to accommodate additional payment methods on request.

A few of the payment methods that are popular in 2023 include:

  • Credit and debit cards

  • Digital wallets like PayPal and Stripe

  • Mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Samsung Pay

  • WhatsApp Pay (in selected countries)

  • Text-to-pay

  • Voice pay

  • QR codes

  • Direct debit and bank transfers

  • Buy now pay later (BNPL)

  • Cryptocurrency payments

Delivery and Fulfillment

In 2023, online shoppers expect the delivery of their online purchases to be fast, flexible, and traceable. Expectations that were set by the pandemic haven't been lowered. If anything, they've increased.

  • Offer expedited delivery options, including same-day or next-day delivery for customers in your immediate geographical region.

  • Continue to offer options like curbside pickup and buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS).

  • Make all packages as traceable as possible for customers' peace of mind.

  • Use tools like picture proof of delivery (PPOD) to confirm that customers' orders have been delivered (and when).

AI Offers Opportunities for Differentiation

Finally, it would be remiss to overlook some of the most recent tools to enter the web and their impact on the world of ecommerce. Tools like Bard and ChatGPT have made it possible to populate an entire website with text written by robots, and the natural phrasing of the output means it's often impossible to distinguish content written by humans from content that's generated by AI.

While these tools allow business owners to generate keyword-optimized content at little or no cost, it's important to keep in mind that these tools' output is sometimes wrong (even dangerous) while the language itself sounds confident. Keeping humans in the loop and/or continuing to employ human content creators can help you avoid problems such as making false or misleading claims or accidentally promoting your competitors on your ecommerce site. It will also help you ensure that your content is unique, on-brand, and adds value for your readers.

Adjust to the Market and Reap the Rewards

In 2023, the key market trends for ecommerce represent a combination of economic, technological, and environmental forces that, together, influence customer behavior. Meeting customers where they're at in terms of priorities, concerns, and expectations is the best way to help you sustain and grow your sales.

When developing a game plan for the rest of this year and into 2024, stay in touch with your current customers to find out what aspects of the shopping experience are working (and not working) for them, what they'd like to see, and measure key metrics with analytical tools to see which strategies and trends are making the biggest difference to your bottom line.

Igor Avidon

SEO expert & founder of Avidon Marketing Group

https://avidonmarketinggroup.com
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