Top 25 E-commerce Trends for 2024

Online retail and e-commerce are expanding at a phenomenal rate. Experts forecast that the global industry will be worth more than $7.3 trillion by 2025, largely due to the rapid changes in consumer behaviour in recent years.

Even though e-commerce chances have been expanding gradually, the pandemic made it imperative for all generations to investigate the advantages of internet buying. E-commerce made up about 18.1% of total sales in 2021, and the percentage is still rising.

We’ll look at the top 25 e-commerce trends in this blog that will alter the game in the coming year. These new developments—which range from the emergence of personalised shopping experiences and the smooth integration of virtual and augmented reality to the growing significance of sustainability and the growth of voice commerce—will significantly alter how customers interact with brands and make decisions about what to buy.

Whether you’re an established online retailer or a budding entrepreneur, understanding these key trends will be crucial to your success in the rapidly evolving e-commerce market. Get ready to dive into the future of online shopping and unlock the strategies that will propel your business forward in the years to come.

Here is the list of 25 E-commerce trends

1. AR Integration

Augmented reality will become increasingly integrated into the online shopping journey, allowing consumers to virtually “try on” products and visualise them in a simulation of surroundings, making it easier for us to click that purchase button. AR will become a necessity in some time as it makes it easier for customers to decide and they don’t have to work too much to find their exact sizes or how the product will look in real life. It eliminates the factor of trying products and takes a huge hit on offline shopping.

2. Hyper-Personalization

Have you ever noticed that whenever you talk about something you’re thinking of buying your phone or social media suggests the same thing the next minute? Yeah welcome to the future of e-commerce, advanced data analytics and Artificial intelligence have revolutionised how companies and brands can deliver tailor-made shopping experiences for each customer. The days of one-size-fits-all are quickly coming to an end. E-commerce businesses are using AI algorithms to get deeper insights into consumer behaviour, preferences, history and sometimes even their emotional standing and intent, to target each consumer personally according to their persona.

3. Voice Commerce Acceleration

Voice assistants are already changing how we search for and purchase products, and this trend will only accelerate. We can expect voice-enabled shopping to become mainstream. Voice assistants are now present in every kind of device that we use, this is gonna change how we search for products and e-commerce companies should be aware and on their toes for this kind of change coming in the industry and they must optimise their websites and apps accordingly.

4. Upselling and Cross-Selling Using AI

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are growing in the capacity to keep an eye on the user’s search and purchasing behaviour which in turn helps in suggesting products better according to every unique user’s need. There are many ERP and CRM software that help companies learn about their consumers and target them one-on-one according to their personas and history.

In case you need software for your business to do the hard work for you and provide you with every minute detail about each customer of yours, to know where you have been mentioned on the internet, to make your branding better and satisfy your customers, Locobuzz CX platform takes care of all your business and branding needs. Locobuzz uses big data, AI and ML to provide you with the best results for your business to grow.

5. Increased Payment Options

In a recent survey by Forbes, 2/3rds of the people said they used all kinds of payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal or Venmo as much as the traditional kinds of payment. While 53% of the audience said that they prefer payment in the form of ACH payment, wire transfer or Cryptocurrency. Offering more payment alternatives than your competitor provides you with a small advantage over them, and some clients could choose to buy from you since it makes more financial sense for them. Some offline stores have started keeping more contactless payment options for their customers so that they don’t have to go through the hassle, they can just ‘tap and pay’ using their phones or cards.

Many companies have started offering different types of payment plans, which means that the customer can pay for the product according to their preferences without any extra charges. If they want to make the purchase official or want to pay the whole amount it is a very quick and easy process.

6. Social Commerce

In the world of social media, influencers and information, social commerce is becoming a norm for the industry. Now, every brand wants to associate with an influencer and showcase their products on social media with different types of media to help them reach popularity and create brand awareness. This has led to brands making it easier for customers to directly buy products from their social media platforms. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp have their features of marketplaces or shopping tools for their users to make a purchase directly from their application. This unifies the promotion and the purchase step in one platform which is a hassle-free process for customers and they can buy what they see in an instant.

7. Greater Emphasis on Sustainability

People have started realising the benefits of sustainable products and not harming the environment with their choices. Awareness around sustainability has only been growing among the youth and Gen-Z audiences, this will create a huge demand in every industry and urge them to produce more sustainable products to fill the gap in the market. Not just the regular customers but also the government is trying to make a major shift towards promoting sustainable practices, renewable energy and long-term sustainability

8. The subscription model increases repeat customers

Many companies use subscription-based models for selling their products and its popularity has been increasing ever since. Companies like this model as it has a greater chance of increasing the customer retention rate. Retaining customers has a lot of benefits for the customer as well as the business. When businesses try to find new customers, it costs them more when compared to retaining customers. That base of retained customers also brings marketing in the form of word of mouth, increases brand loyalty and since it is a subscription it practically makes the customer retain with mostly no extra benefits. But, when businesses feel they might lose the customer they can come up with extra discounts or benefits for their loyal customers and they still save money when compared to the cost of acquiring new customers.

9. Be Omnipresent for Customers

In this era of instant gratification, customers might want to contact you for their problems and queries. But the question is, how can they do it? So some of them might want to contact you through call or text. Some prefer an email or a social media platform like Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. This creates the need for businesses to be omnipresent online so that they can provide better support for their customers whenever and however they want. This increases customer loyalty and embeds a feeling in their minds that the company listens to their problems and provides help.

This can also be referred to as Online Reputation Management (ORM), it’s like taking care of your online image and ensuring that your business is always viewed in a good light. To do this you need to do 2 things: be proactive and reactive.
Being proactive means doing things so people like your business; being reactive means responding to anything negative about your business on the internet politely and fixing it.

Locobuzz is a CX tool that can help you manage your image online, be omnipresent and build a loyal community of customers, all from one place.

10. Greater Distribution and fulfilment planning

Customers now are more impatient than ever, for anything they are planning to purchase they want it to arrive as early as possible. Also, there are times when customers need their products urgently for any particular reason so they might look for the time of their order getting delivered as one of the priorities of their purchase. Businesses need to enhance their distribution to a certain level and plan their customers’ fulfilment of their orders as quickly as possible. Businesses need to look for better supply channels and greater distribution numbers and optimise this to a better level.

11. Smoother processes for online purchases

E-commerce platforms are now optimising their payment gateways, websites and applications for seamless purchases online. Customers can now buy from anywhere at any time using their phones and different social media platforms and companies need to cater to their short attention spans and allow them to purchase directly and seamlessly that is why apps like Instagram and Facebook allow their customers to directly purchase from their platform.

12. Fresh marketplaces

In this time of online shopping, leaders like Amazon, Flipkart, Walmart etc are both a blessing and a curse for the smaller e-commerce businesses. They ask for higher platform fees and costs but they also have a greater audience and reach to customers. So, some e-commerce platforms have launched a revolt against these giants by creating their own e-commerce platforms or they decided not to sell their products on these marketplaces and rather have people come to their websites or pages to purchase the products.

13. Quick Commerce

There has been a new revolution around the e-commerce marketplace and people have named it ‘Quick Commerce’. Quick commerce platforms are platforms that provide you with things that are needed on a daily or regular basis in a person’s life such as groceries, beauty products, dairy, health drinks, medicines or even things like cigarettes are available on such platforms to order and receive it in under 15 minutes. One of these platforms, BlinkIt, recently went viral as they, in association with Sony, provided customers with an option to buy PlayStation 5 through their platform and get their delivery in under 15 minutes. This is gonna change the e-commerce industry and it’s already started.

14. Videos are the Secret to Reciprocation

Videos proved to be a great way to engage customers in 2019 and it has only been growing ever since. Videos are a great way to instantly grab attention, engage and showcase your products to the consumer. Videos are one of the best ways to inform and educate the customer about products and services as well if your product is a bit complicated. This also leads to customer interactions, and shares, increases awareness and customers respond more to this type of content, which in turn provides better data and insights into their minds.

Locobuzz Intelligence solutions are designed to help eCommerce brands to find consumer behavior trends and the operations suites help manage the life cycle interactions with the customers.

15. Website Optimisation Brings Greater Conversions

Bringing potential customers to your website is one task but converting them is a whole other realm. When a company’s products are made available on a big e-commerce platform like Amazon or Flipkart, it’s tough to get personalised information or data about their customers and target them better or personally. Meanwhile, if you try to bring them to your website, make them browse through it and make a purchase through the company’s website it provides you with better data and information for future reference. It also creates trust in your customer’s mind as it makes his trust issues go away as he/she would not be concerned about the quality, reliability and the fact that he’s not getting scammed by a seller who can sell him fake products. This in turn brings customer loyalty and retention, which increases profits and reduces costs.

16. Consumer Privacy is an Important Factor

E-commerce companies are complying with data privacy regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act by enhancing data security and ensuring their privacy policies are transparent in a bid to protect the consumers’ details and gain their trust. It is simple to violate these regulations, hence the need to ensure that your business complies with them. Letting customers know that you keep their details will enhance your trustworthiness online.

17. Mobile Shopping is Never Going Out of Fashion

As we know, mobiles are the most handy and used devices in this world. In the modern age, wherever a person goes he can forget anything, his wallet, keys, phone numbers etc but he won’t forget his phone. We are so addicted to our phones that whenever we get some time to think or be alone we instantly reach our pocket for our phones and start scrolling. This trend will never die and this creates this surety that if you optimise your applications or website for them to work their best when opened on a phone and provide the best experience to your customers while they shop from their handy devices, it will only benefit your business. People prefer to buy from their phones now rather than their desktops or computers.

18. Post-Purchase Personalisation

People love getting attention or getting personalised messages from businesses. It makes them feel seen. This also brings a trust factor that they know the business sees them as important. Your work as a business owner just does not end after the customer purchases your product. It’s also about the service and the kind of attention you provide to them post that. So, sending personalised messages or notifications is a very easy way to draw the attention of your customers to your brand. This increases brand loyalty, increases the chance of communication with consumers and provides them with offers and benefits, sometimes also helps in upselling your products.

19. ChatBots Provide a Better Shopping Experience

Want to provide a personal shopping assistant for your customer? Want someone to answer queries and questions in a fast and efficient way? Want to provide customers with updates about their purchases and orders instantly? ChatBots are a great solution for all of these problems. Many e-commerce websites use chatbots to provide a more personalised experience for their customers on their websites. They can answer FAQs instantly without any supervision, can talk to customers about particular problems and you can also program them to be your customer’s assistant by providing recommendations, suggestions and personalised shopping choices using AI, ML and big data.

20. Buy Online and Pick-up in Store

BOPIS allows consumers to shop for their product online, make the purchase online and then go and pick up the order from the store. This combines the convenience of shopping online and the urgency of getting the order in their hands. Saves time, and fulfils the need of the customer to get the order when they want.

21. Focusing on Customer Experience

Customer experience has become a factor of greater influence in the process of making a business successful. E-commerce companies are now laying greater emphasis on making CX better by optimising websites, decreasing loading times, providing top-notch content on the website, providing better post-purchase services, and making navigation through the website smoother, more creative and easier for the customer. Don’t underestimate this trend as the customer is your king and this makes your customer stay with your brand, increases brand loyalty and drives customer satisfaction.

23. Peer Reviews and Recommendations

If I ask you would you buy a product that has no reviews or recommendations about it online? Your answer will always be no. How can anyone trust a product which has no review or recommendations on its name? That’s exactly what e-commerce companies realised, adding peer reviews and recommendations to their products increases the trust that a customer can place in the product if it’s new to the market or even if it’s been here a long time. It also leads to easier and smoother decision-making from the side of the customer. They can read reviews of people who have used the product and decide if it concerns them and whether they should buy it or not instead of searching the rest of the internet for recommendations.

23. D2C Brands are Ever-Growing

Since now it’s easier than ever to target each customer personally according to their wants and needs, D2C brands will only flourish in this market. D2C brands sell a wide variety of products without the need for a wholesaler or retailer as a middleman. I mean, look at the number of D2C products around you only, shoes, clothes, glasses and whatnot. So many brands in the same product line yet all of them can become successful. With so many advantages coming with technology like data, AI and ML this trend will only continue to grow.

24. B2B is not Going Anywhere

This is a massive business segment. E-commerce trends in B2B will see more automation including automated accounts payable, accounts receivable, reordering and fulfilment. If you serve businesses, get busy automating it or make sure you’re using the latest technology from newer solutions like customer relationship management to customer support to enterprise resource planning solutions.

25. Green Packaging and Logistics

The growing popularity of sustainable practices extended to the shipping and logistics operations of e-commerce companies. Delivery routes were optimised for more effective resource use, and packaging waste was minimised. Furthermore, due to the adaptation of zero-waste models, e-commerce brands transitioned to recyclable cardboard and plastic, as well as compostable packaging to reduce their environmental impact and attract customers concerned with sufficient and ethical production.

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Conclusion

In 2024, e-commerce is an industry thriving on technological progress and evolving customer preferences. AI-based personalisation, AR shopping, and live commerce shape the digital path to purchase, and increasing sustainability, and morality drive product decisions and supply chain operations. The move to mobile, social commerce, and subscription shopping demonstrates the continuing focus on simplicity and immersion. Nevertheless, despite digital integration and shopping experiences, CX has discerned itself as the top priority in all businesses through seamless experiences and openness. E-commerce companies must quickly adapt to new and unexpected preferences and use trending technologies to meet new increased demands and expectations for the customer. Brands achieve success in this saturated competitive environment by focusing on sustainability, providing more personalisation, and ensuring data privacy.