Mobile Is On the Move
While smartphones accounted for a little under a third of eCommerce traffic in 2014, it only accounted for a little over 10% of revenue. More than two-thirds of eCommerce traffic took place through mobile devices in 2018. This means your website needs to not only be mobile-friendly for someone checking out your store hours and location when near the brick and mortar location, but you also need to have a mobile-friendly checkout process when they want to buy items online. Any business that fails to do this will not only lose out to competitors, but you’ll also start to lose out in the search rankings.
E-commerce in the Developing World
E-commerce in India is growing at over 20% a year, a rate that even exceeds the growth of e-commerce in China. The Indian market has seen several major eCommerce sites invest in the country. At the same time, individuals are shifting to selling online through various platforms. That’s completely understandable given that an estimated 450 million people in India were online by mid-2017. In developing countries, mobile e-commerce and mobile-friendly sites are even more important because most customers can only access the internet through smartphones. If you are selling a product that may appeal to those in the developing world, now is the time to monopolize on this. Have your product pages translated and perform SEO for the countries you are newly targeting.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping refers to the practice of shipping orders directly from a supplier warehouse while operating an independent online retail space. Companies that do this save on inventory since they don’t have to keep a wide variety of items in their stores to match the variety on their website. A number of major companies have already stated their intention to use dropshipping to expand what they can offer to customers without having to invest in the logistics to put the same items in their stores. Building a dropshipping e-commerce site can be a major boon for a small business that wants to go national since they can move from their small shop and home office to the “big time” by handing off inventory and shipping to a drop shipper instead of expanding their staff.
On-Demand Delivery
An on-demand marketplace is no longer an ideal – it is already here. Same-day delivery is becoming the best-in-class service for major retailers, whether brick and mortar or e-commerce sites. In the cases where no one can deliver the product same-day, customers still discriminate between suppliers based on delivery time. A study by Stuart found that a third of customers always buy from the retailer with same day service over someone else, and nearly two thirds will pay a premium for same-day deliveries. The issue is so important to consumers that a few major e-tailers are using distributed warehouses to try to deliver products to their customers in a matter of hours. Others are letting customers order online and then pick up their orders at the nearest store.
The Clean, Practical Site
Minimalist websites that rely less on cluttered graphics and more on color contrasts with a few vivid images are ideal for mobile users; that’s why they’re becoming the norm. Website designers have also found that the good images of the product for sale often sell the product. This shift is accompanied by easy-to-navigate websites with large, obvious buttons or product categories. The simpler the navigation bar, the better. Avoid having scrollable images at the top of your screen and make your site as simple to navigate as possible if you want to capture more custom.
Personalization
Personalization is becoming more popular for several reasons. One is the business case; businesses with personalization strategies are seeing sales gains of 6% to 10%. That is two to three times faster growth than businesses that ignore this method of improving customer conversions and engagement. It could come in the form of recommending items to customers based on their purchase history, offering personalized services that you know this particular customer values. or giving people special offers that fit their interests and needs.
Conclusion
We aren’t yet at the point of delivering items to customers via drones within minutes of them placing an order, but customers are demanding a faster, personal service no matter where they are. This is forcing businesses to alter not just websites but often their entire business model.
