It’s a no-brainer to believe that Ecommerce is at an all-time high. With innumerable lockdowns, COVID-19 regulations, retail closures, and travel bans, consumers were forced to move online. And the moment they moved online, in no time, businesses tried adapting to the new norm and hopped online. In some cases, we came across businesses selling direct to consumers (DTC) for the first time. However, not every Ecommerce business was successful in an attempt to adapt.
And to say this year was an utter disappointment, would very well be a tragic understatement. Instead, this year only pushed businesses to find a workaround. Although the Ecommerce business was slowly picking up the pace, COVID-19 only catalyzed its development. Retail stores went digital, the introduction of BYOC, remote working to shopping online, and the year of 2020 turned the world upside down. However, the one thing that hasn’t changed one bit is providing a world-class customer experience.
The Changing E-commerce Landscape
Although many businesses were quick to adapt, some absolutely lacked the infrastructure to strike a balance. Besides, it’s not easy to stand out in an overcrowded Ecommerce market. DTC brands are trying to crystallize their position by automating shipping and fulfilling orders at a faster pace. Along with quick delivery, the Ecommerce businesses are focussing on the packaging too.
However, a world-class customer experience is just not limited to quick delivery and beautiful packaging. Rather it also includes the need to elevate those experiences, humanizing the brand and keeping the customer hooked for constant engagement. From small businesses to multinational businesses, everyone has jumped to take advantage and make the most out of the situation.
With the ever-changing industry, several new trends come up and make rounds and 2021 is no different. So, let’s dive right into figuring out the emerging B2B Ecommerce trends in 2021.
What is trending in Ecommerce?
Let’s quickly dive into the top five Ecommerce trends of 2021.
1) Voice Commerce is on the Rise
Instead of stating, let’s start with statistics.
- By 2025, 75% of U.S. households will have smart speakers
- Voice commerce sales are anticipated to reach $40 billion by 2023.
As the world moves towards a digital revolution, people are increasingly relying on voice assistant devices. From Amazon Echo with Alexa to Google Home with Google Assistant, these voice assistants can do everything from waking you up to reading your emails for you. Besides, the sheer accuracy and convenient technology have only made buying products online with the help of the voice assistants easier.
Lastly, both these giants are pushing regional languages in their voice assistant devices to help consumers better and easier. Therefore, it becomes all the more essential to optimize your Ecommerce store for voice search and embrace this Ecommerce trend.
Here are a few ways that can help you Ecommerce prepare your site for the upcoming voice queries:
- Optimize your top-level conversion funnel content well to increase your odds of appearing in voice searches by incorporating common queries.
- Ensure to use a simple flow for the customer to easily purchase your products using voice command. This would help to provide top quality customer service.
- Don’t forget to add a new skill on Alexa and Google voice assistant devices.
- Also, offer voice-based navigation on your mobile app and website to make voice search easy.
These four ways would help you to attract, engage, and offer immense value to potential customers. Besides, to stand out as the next leader in your niche, voice commerce is now too big to ignore.
2) Omnichannel Shopping Will Become the New Normal
Well, before diving in deep, what is Omnichannel shopping?
It refers to providing consumers with a seamless shopping experience across devices and channels.
A Harvard Business Review found out that almost 73% of respondents use multiple channels during their shopping journey. And with the increasing use of smart devices, this Ecommerce trend is only going to grow bigger especially in 2021.
To take full advantage of the situation, you can start to use various analytics tools like Finteza that provide you with detailed information on how to track and identify customer behaviors. This also comes in handy to identify the products that are in demand, evaluate your brand value, measure customer loyalty, and monitor your sales.
Here are four ways you can offer a seamless omnichannel experience to your customers.
- As the use of smartphone devices rises, it’s essential to optimize your website for mobile devices.
- Try making your shopper’s experience unique by personalizing it at every step possible.
- Use tools that offer a comprehensive Ecommerce experience to your customer with end-to-end online retail processes.
- For your Ecommerce business to shine offer various purchase options, to provide your customers with options to choose from:
- Regular online shopping i.e buying online and opting for doorstep delivery
- Order online and pick up in-store
- Walk-in and buy in-store and choosing home delivery
3) AI and AR Will Enhance the Ecommerce Experience
- Online businesses will spend over $7.3 billion on AI by 2023.
- Over 120,000 stores will be using AR/VR technologies by 2023 to elevate and offer a seamless and rich-buying experience to their customers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) acts as a personal assistant and uses previous buying history to personalized recommendations. This Ecommerce trend is noteworthy and would only help you to establish a better shopping experience. Similarly, augmented reality (AR) would help come in handy to help customers see how a specific product would look on them before they buy it. Implementing AI and AR in your Ecommerce store will lead to an increase in conversions and a dip in the return rate. Amazing, right?
4) Adopting Dynamic Pricing
Here’s the new kid on the block, Dynamic pricing. This upcoming 2021 Ecommerce trends allows businesses to remain competitive and still attract more customers. After all, if you don’t dredge and price your products correctly, your business won’t generate enough revenue to continue. But, that doesn’t imply, you overprice your products and drive away customers. It’s crucial to strike the right balance and fix an amount that gives you the best possible chance of selling your product while making the maximum possible profits.
5) Visual Commerce is on the Rise
Other than mobile commerce and the use of AI, now Visual commerce is also on the rise. Wondering what’s that? It refers to using imagery instead of just relying on regular product images. This not only helps to engage but also entices customers to purchase.
Retailers like Bose, have already included visual commerce to convert shoppers. With high-quality product images, they have also introduced shortcuts/CTAs for customers to make purchases directly.
Here are a few different ways to leverage the next best 2021 Ecommerce trend:
- Major retailers are creating and using 360-degree images or videos of products, to elevate customer experience and grab customer’s attention.
- You can change your regular JPG format image to WebP formats and improve loading speed.
- Start to use your user-generated content to develop interests.
- You can also invest in a visual search tool to help customers carry out a reverse search.
Now that you have a fair idea about the emerging Ecommerce trends of the next, it’s time to think a step ahead. So, what would be the next step? It would be to look at the seasonal trends of certain products. or to narrow it down, what is working in your niche. You can even use it to edge out competitors by monitoring their positions. Here are three ways to use Google Trends and maximize your business.
How to Use Google Trends?
1) Find Niches
One tool that can help you find a skyrocketing niche is Google Trends. If you’re looking for a new niche and clueless on how to figure that out, all you need is a search query on Google Trends. It will clearly show the search volumes within a time frame to get a better insight into the in-trend niches. Google Trends also allows you to take a look at the seasonal trends in one clear-cut shot.
Let’s take a look at the two different niches:
The below-mentioned figure is of the skyrocketing niche product: posture corrector.
The graph clearly shows that in the last few months, this product has seen skyrocketing growth. While here’s an example of a niche that has been stable ever since: men’s fashion.
You can see in the graph that for the most part, Google Trends shows that men’s fashion is a pretty stable niche. Another kind of a trend that fades away too fast, here’s a look at what fad looks like on Google Trends? This data speaks about fidget spinners.
While in the last few graphs, we can see rises and falls, here both those factors are pretty sharp. This shows that this is no longer a good business idea.
2. Find Niche Topics by Region
You can also use Google Trends to identify niche topics by region. Wondering why? When it comes to advertising, we often tend to target a large area, instead of targeting smaller regions. Because no two regions’ audiences would be similar. That’s why if something is working in New
York, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it would work in Louisiana.
Here’s a look at the Google Trends on gold earrings and understand the difference.
While In Louisiana, we can understand that the interest in gold earrings isn’t very high. And now, let’s take a look at New York’s graph.
The search volume for “gold earrings” is rising in New York. And what does that imply? It means that if you are a business that creates gold earrings, then you should put up a targeted ad in New York to capitalize on some sales. This only increases your odds of establishing and landing sales without wasting pennies.
3. Monitor Competitors’ Position
With the help of Google Trends, you can also monitor your competitors. This tool can help you see what elements are working for them when compared to your brand. Here’s a simple comparison of Marvel Comics vs. DC Comics comparison when Captain Marvel came out. Google trends clearly show how both of these brands have been performing over the years.
This tool lets you compare up to five competitors and search terms which helps you understand the intricacies of brand messaging and tweak yours. Constantly comparing your brand with the best-performing competitors helps you to analyze your marketing channels and help you improve your brand. It also ensures that you stay a step ahead of competitors.
How to find trending Ecommerce products?
With so many popular D2C brands today, there’s a fear to feel, look, and sell similar products. Unfortunately, this is the truth. With the product market reaching a saturation point, oftentimes, it is difficult to generate product ideas.
Luckily for you, we understand the pain. And that’s we have put together a few ways that would help you to brainstorm about new products and unlock your entrepreneurial spirit.
1. Identify a problem and create a product that solves it
It’s always best to reflect on the problems you face in your life, while you’re brainstorming ideas for a product or service. Someone like Kyle Kirkpatrick, who was an Olympic gymnastics coach, wanted to listen to music while he trained athletes. The problem is simple, but what would be the perfect solution – headphones that would stay in place, regardless of all the activities he had to carry out. He then went out and Kirkpatrick successfully transformed his need into a business idea that led to the invention of Decibullz.
Kirkpatrick not only figured out a problem but also conveniently solved it by being simple yet exceptionally effective. By founding your brainstorm in the eyes of a consumer, you will be able to identify ways a product or service can bring value to someone’s life.
2. Sell products that you are passionate about
Starting an Ecommerce business is no joke and does not always get you enough spotlight. Although setting up a business might look rosy, it involves long hours and a lot of sacrifices. And nothing beats ‘passion’. Passion can help you to work hard during challenging times. It can also come in handy to craft a brand message that translates your passion and determination and makes your brand authentic, meaningful, and engaging.
3. Find products with branding potential.
Now that you’ve identified a potential product with an eminent solution to daily consumer needs and comes from a place of passion, what would be your next step?
It’s time to create a name for your brand that helps you succeed in a competitive Ecommerce space. The right branding and brand message play an indispensable role in making your brand reach your potential customers and speak to them in a way that resonates with their feelings and at the same time compelling them to come back. In other words, you need to establish a solid understanding and loyalty among your customers.
To help you out, we have compiled some questions to get you started:
- How do you position your products?
- What values will effectively resonate with your customers?
- How would you like your brand to converse with customers?
- How does your target audience like to be addressed?
- What is the best possible way to design your website that helps communicate your brand message and also appeals to your potential customers?
- What type of layout, color scheme, and calls to action, would like to be part of your website or app?
Industry Example: Jeff and Spencer Jan of Solo Stove have nailed their branding message.
Solo Stove focused their messaging on how their products offer an opportunity for consumers to make some wonderful memories with their loved ones. The centralized brand theme helped the brand to exponentially grow with an organic following. Their focus on helping people reconnect rang a bell and helped them to be successful.
After all, leveraging and utilizing your product to create value, the purpose within the community plays a crucial role in growing your online store.
4. Identify and Follow trends early.
If you can’t be the trendsetter, you should not be the last one to follow the trend. You should always make an effort to take advantage of the emerging trends and spin it in a way that helps your brand shine through. To crystallize your brand’s position, you need to stay constantly updated about the trends, products, customer demands, and services. Once you are aware of all the nitty-gritty, it’s finally time to capitalize and hit the popularity mark.
5. Keeping Looking Out for New Business Opportunities
What makes you an entrepreneur? The constant need to push the imagination and build something new.
To be able to do that, you need to constantly be on the lookout for new business opportunities. And how do you do that? By paying attention, honing your observation skills, and finally asking the right questions -on what needs change/improvement?
You can also pay close attention to what the industry experts are saying and evaluating what works best for your business. One definite way to do this by identifying and serving niche segments.
In a Nutshell,
As we move to 2021, Ecommerce businesses are looking to dominate the market. Thus, as the business owner, it’s time to pull up your socks and adopt the latest Ecommerce trends as soon as possible. Also, make the right use of different tools like google trends to stay updated and make the most of the next year.
So what are you waiting for? Start your 2021 by rolling out an impressive eCommerce site and make a great impact on people’s lives with innovation and dedication.
