#GrowthHacks: Ecommerce Trends In 2017 You Need To Know About

Building work for future

1. Social Media Will Soar
Social media saw a huge leap this year with the introduction of Facebook Dynamic Ads. This is bound to continue. For its part, Snapchat is coming up with more strategies for e-commerce. So that’s bound to see a leap in 2017 as well. This year saw the introduction of video shopping ads where Target and Lancôme advertised their products through video. To make a purchase, all a customer needs to do is swipe across the product.

If you’re wondering what is ecommerce advertising, this is a great example.
Although advertising info isn’t complete, the platform can still be used for marketing, with sponsored geofilters, regular filters, and live stories. As more brands opt for this, Snapchat will undoubtedly be big factor when it comes to social commerce.

Building work for future

Building work for future

2. Chatbots On The Rise
Chatbots are another aspect of social media that’s becoming increasingly popular, especially in messaging apps. It’s a type of robot agent that helps customers while they’re browsing. They simulate intelligent conversation to answer queries. 51% of people require a business to be available 24/7 (venturebeat), and 49.4% want to contact a business through a messaging service rather than through the phone.
With the increased demand for speed, customers prefer chat bots rather than listening to music and being put on hold. Although chatbots can’t respond to all questions and have limits, it’s an important step in ecommerce.
Social media could also take a more cross border approach in 2017. In the West, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc), are popular. In eastern countries like China, platforms like WeChat are increasingly popular. With more than 818 million monthly active users, WeChat is more of a messaging application than an actual social media platform.
Burberry, Chanel and Mulberry have started selling on Wechat.  In 2012, Starbucks received an average of 22,000 messages a day and attracted 62,000 fans. Sportswear brands, Nike, Adidas, and NBA have taken to WeChat. 2017 will be the year that other brands also expand their businesses to China.

3. Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is reaching a level where it’s actually useful to people’s daily lives.   Amazon’s Alexa (on the Echo), Google Now (in Google Home), etc., have got people used to talking to machines.
This will impact E-commerce as the beginning stage of the research process will be conducted by a personal assistant. Different assistants respond in different ways: Google Home will list the top results of the search page while Echo will direct its user to Amazon product pages and reviews.

4. Mobile Payment and Loyalty Apps
Mobile payments are on the rise. Starbucks was one of the first to try this. They’ve also added a loyalty program that’s generated a 12% increase in revenue.  They also collect valuable customer behavior information.

5. Multi-channel Shopping
Retailers who are equipped to deliver multi-channel  experiences for their customers can find their ability to boost sales rise as well.

6. Interactive Shopping
Each customer has their own preferences.  2017 will be a year where shopping is personalized to customer preferences.

7. More Mobile Traffic
By 2020, at least 80% of mobile data traffic will come from mobile devices. E-commerce sites like Shopify, Magento, YoKart etc have all identified this trend and are catering to the mobile app industry to ensure that every player out there has a service that they can use to create their own mobile app.

8. Same Day Delivery
At the moment, there are just a few on-demand delivery services. In 2017, one of the biggest must-have features in the industry will be on-demand delivery. This is important, since customers want their products immediately, instead of having to wait days after ordering it.

9. Goodbye to Wallets
Digital wallets are on the rise. Digital wallet apps like Google Wallet, PayPal, etc., will be adopted  on a large scale.

10. Quicker Checkouts
In 2016, many online stores shortened their purchasing process to one page or one step checkouts for payment processing. This ensures that customers don’t spend too much time paying for the product and can go about their work without spending a long time on the app.

11. Emphasis on Security

eCommerce websites like Shopify, Magento, YoKart etc., now have to include HTTPS encryption to ensure they have customer confidence in online shopping.  SSL certificates are a must as well.

With chatbots, digital wallets, and mobile on the rise, 2017 is all set to be a promising year for the tech industry.   

Customer behaviour will be closely adapted to with the help of real-time analytics.