The ecommerce sector has not stopped growing since its advent in the 1990s. Experts predict that U.S ecommerce retail sales will hit more than $560.7 billion in 2024, up from just two years before $446.8 billion.
Infact, Statista predicts that by 2024 worldwide income from retail ecommerce will reach $4.88 trillion.
So we should expect continued development in the coming years with more companies entering the industry.
But this translates into more rivalry. And this implies staying on your toes to get ahead for e-commerce merchants.
You need to be familiar with the recent developments in ecommerce, which are often the consequence of technological advances and changes in customer preferences and behaviour.
In this article, to beat your competitor’s, we will address the future of ecommerce trends that you should follow in 2024.
7 Future of eCommerce Trends:
1 – DropShipping :
Dropshipping can be a lucrative business model for ecommerce companies with little capital to begin with. It includes acting as the intermediary between the client and the producer or distributor.
You process the purchase, but the item is delivered straight to the purchaser without the physical item being handled.
The Merchant eCommerce Report for 2024 discovered that 16.4 percent of 450 online stores used dropshipping.
Businesses using this model encountered a 32.7 percent average development in income and a 1.74 percent average conversion rate.
Because of these apparent advantages, in the future we are likely to see much more dropshipping.
Dropshipping is especially helpful for selling bulky products in warehouses and shops that can take up a lot of room. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is precisely why major shops like Home Depot and Macy’s have adopted the company model to expand their internet reach.
2 – Multi-Channel Selling :
People don’t create their purchases online using just one channel.
87 percent of customers in the U.S. shop offline, according to the 2024 Omnichannel Buying Report. 78% of study participants indicated buying from Amazon, 45% from a branded internet shop, 65% from a brick-and-mortar shop, 34% from eBay and 11% from Facebook.
Consumers spend 69 percent of their discretionary revenue on shopping in-store, according to the same study. Also, purchases from brick and mortar shops are made by 56 percent of Gen Z.
These figures demonstrate how lucrative it can be to meet the requirements of omni-channel shoppers for ecommerce merchants. So in the coming year we should expect a increase in multi-channel sales.
You need to create yourself accessible across all the channels your shoppers use to develop your company as an internet merchant. This might be on social media and brick-and-mortar stores as well as other online stores apart from your own website.
3 – Smarter payment Processing :
The payment method is the final step in the client journey, and it is a crucial step that could create a transformation or break it.
The client went through various phases, including consciousness and consideration, and lastly decided to purchase your item.
But if the experience is not effortless and smooth at this point, you might still lose the prospective client.
Nearly 70 percent of shoppers are abandoning their carts, according to the Baymard Institute. This indicates that a majority of shoppers still do not finish the payment process even after investigating and considering goods carefully and adding them to their cart.
The same study discovered that due to a lengthy or complex checkout process, 28 percent of cart abandonment happens.
If you plan to get ahead of the contest, this is one element you will have to address in 2024. With an simple payment alternative, you will need to give a smoother checkout method that ensures fast conversions.
4 – Omnichannel Personalization :
We stated earlier that selling omni-channel will become more common in 2024.
However, being accessible on various channels is not enough.
You will also need to provide a cohesive brand experience by customizing your interactions across all these channels for each client. In other words, all of your channels need to acknowledge the client as the same individual.
If not, you might end up providing insignificant experiences that might be too intrusive or irritating. And it’s a well-known fact that today’s business success requires personalization.
In fact, in an Epsilon study, 80 percent of respondents said that personalized experiences make them more likely to do business with a business. And 90% find customization attractive.
In addition, an Evergage research discovered that for 98 percent of marketers, customization has developed client relationships. Eighty-eight percent think their clients and prospects expect a personalized experience.
5 – Mobile Commerce
Mcommerce sales are forecast to account for 44.7% of total U.S. ecommerce sales in 2024, up from 39.6% in 2024. With a predicted 2.71 billion globally smartphone consumers in 2024, distributors can no longer afford to postpone the mobile shopping experience.
That said, portable shoppers are converting just 1.73 percent at a dismal pace compared to 4.02 percent of desktop shoppers. Retailers need to focus on creating the fastest and easiest mobile shopping experience possible to keep up with desktop sales.
Desktop shopping technology stays comparatively stagnant as smartphones evolve — a mobile-optimized version of a desktop site is no longer sufficient to produce the greatest possible experience.
Whether via an app or a mobile site, distributors should consider mobile as a completely distinct project, tailoring design, content, and checkout to the recent tablet & smartphone operating systems.
6 – Chatbot AI :
Chatbots are comparatively new to the industry, but Gareth Dunlop, CEO and founder of Fathom’s user experience consultancy, points to Gartner’s forecast that by 2024 25% of client assistance and services will be integrated with virtual assistants.
“Customers want timely and precise responses to their issues,” adds Taproom Agency founder Kelly Vaughn, “and in busy times, e-commerce merchants are not always able to maintain up with the pace of incoming emails. Fortunately, chatbots are getting smarter, and I look forward to seeing that trend going up.
Kelly describes that machine learning enables these instruments to gain a better knowledge of the most frequently asked questions. To personalize the support experience to the particular client, they can parse client information.
7 – Explosion of AR :
AR will explode in popularity this year, thinks We Make Websites design-focused ecommerce agency Piers Thorogood, co-founder and lead designer.
“It is highly simple to incorporate AR into ecommerce shops with instruments like’ Shopify AR driven by 3D Warehouse’ and a increasing number of 3D modeling professionals,” he describes. “This implies a much richer purchasing experience for customers, enabling them to’ test’ homeware products and’ try on’ clothes and accessories inside their homes. This implies greater conversion rates and lower yields for merchants. In the next 12 months, we expect several of our customers to experiment with this.
Conclusion :
Every year, the future of ecommerce sector is changing dynamically.
With the introduction of AI, it is moving further towards customization and generating fresh consumer experiences.
You can handle your ecommerce company more efficiently while reaching more individuals through omni-channel marketing and payment consolidation.
