This year’s sales season was no disappointment and continued to reinforce the idea that eCommerce is more than a passing fad.
If you want your eCommerce company to be taken seriously in the face of growing competition in this niche, it’s vital to keep ahead of the latest eCommerce trends.
Here are a few we’ve noticed emerging and we believe will become massively important to you in 2017:
- Convert with Omnichannel. Even though mobile traffic continues to show drab sales numbers, digital marketing scientists Wolfgang Digital noted that mobile traffic actually correlates most closely to the highest conversion rates for eCommerce shops.In short, if you want really high performance, look to your mobile sites and how well your omnichannel moves from device to device. Although shoppers are still buying from PCs more often than not, they’re researching and exploring options on their mobile devices.
- Goodbye Cyber Monday and Black Friday! Have you noticed how the biggest online retailers are forgoing Cyber Monday and Black Friday as days to unveil huge sales and instead just giving deep discounts all November and December? Well, so have we.The end of Cyber Monday and Black Friday as sales days is an actuality, instead eCommerce retailers are giving themselves the whole season for sales. This may prove to be to your advantage, since you’ll no longer need to suddenly and violently increase order fulfillment to meet a dramatic surge in demand.
- Growth of virtual wallets. Google Pay, Apple Pay, Mastercard MasterPass and many other virtual wallets are popping up all over the place. Large brick and mortar retailers are accepting cardless transactions, even Taco Bell lets you pay without pulling out any plastic.The virtual wallet is a thing that’s here to stay and it’ll only get more common in 2017. Use this time, right now, to install options for various virtual wallets on your site. PayPal isn’t the only fish in the sea these days, but it’s a good place to start.
- Death of hard sales tactics. Hard selling is so 1985, but some eCommerce retailers continue to push their customers away by being pushy. Today’s shopper wants to be informed, they want to be genuinely helped to make a decision that’s good for them and they want to be treated with some dignity.Pushy sales tactics are out and information sharing and striving to really fill each customer’s individual needs are in.
2017 promises to be an interesting year for eCommerce as the industry continues to mature. It has proven that it’s no longer simply a curiosity, but a legitimate form of business that can connect retailer and shopper like never before.
In order to capture a significant market share, you’ll have to adapt to what today’s eCommerce shopper wants, including changing your sales tactics and providing more ways to pay.
