Technology has always shaped the way the retail industry operates, and in the digital age, this has led to an ever-increasing adoption of e-commerce platforms to do business. Not all online stores can boast the same turnover as Amazon or eBay, but most physical stores now have an online store, if only to showcase their product ranges. What does the future hold for e-commerce and what are the most important trends to consider?
1. Voice searches
A large number of homes in the Western world are now using a smart speaker for more than just listening to their favorite playlists. Voice searches are now increasingly important for many businesses that rely on the attention of potential consumers. Voice technology is likely only going to grow from here on out, so optimizing websites with content that will answer the right types of voice queries, as opposed to traditionally typed keywords, is something that is greatly shaping the e-commerce sector today.
2. Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is crucial to the success of e-commerce businesses today, but how can technology help? One solution is to use so-called omnichannel marketing, which involves creating a cohesive approach so that consumers get a unified shopping experience. Technology helps simplify how to achieve this, so that online stores run by people who are not familiar with digital marketing can achieve professional results. Using an omnichannel e-commerce platform, for example, will allow users to consolidate their marketing efforts across different channels, within a single interface, by importing products from different types of CMS. This way, ads can be displayed on a wide variety of platforms at once. This allows businesses to create more targeted ads with less effort.
3. Artificial intelligence
AI is now widely used in e-commerce, typically making recommendations based on what customers are most likely to be interested in from the available data. Of course, for this reason, AI and data collection go hand in hand in the world of e-commerce, as the results are all the stronger when the two are well aligned. However, AI is not just an automated recommendation tool. It is increasingly being deployed to answer simple customer service questions and even sales inquiries. If someone is looking for a product to solve a particular problem, an AI chatbot can often be the best way to understand the need and make an appropriate suggestion. Again, since many post-sales questions are similar in nature, it is often better to use AI to answer the most common questions rather than simply sending customers to the FAQ section. This means that, like other e-commerce technology trends, it can lead to significant cost savings.
Originally published in The European Times.
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