Recent Trends of E-Commerce

With the emergence of technology various other models of Business and Commerce have risen up through the years. The commercial areas of the world had grown with the ever-changing technologies. The Commercial models had collaborated with all the Technological inventions right from Computers to Smartphone. The idea of collaborating Technology and commerce together took the avatar of E-Commerce. Well I am not going deeper into the history of emergence of E- Commerce, as I would like share with you all some of the recent trends of E-commerce that crawled in at the beginning of the year 2016 and are expected to go far in 2017 also. Let’s just check out some of the most popular ones:

1. Multi Channel: The customers nowadays would prefer websites that offers multi channel sales (example: Amazon etc). The simple reason behind this preference is the availability of a wide variety for selection of products and that too through multiple vendors at different prices and product range to fit in the list of every customer and every budget. This trend help features like Flexibility and variety to grow further in commercial models, attracting a large number of customers.

1. Social Media not enough: The Sellers using technology to earn profits through their products and services have realized that Social Media platforms are not enough to get good collections from the market. One possible reason is the use of fraudulent transaction causing the customers from keeping away with social media platforms. This supported the growth of separate platforms like E-Commerce websites for selling of goods and services using technology.

1. Beacon Integration: A new way of promotion has thrived in with both online and offline integration with the Beacon Technology. A beacon works when a physical store implements physical beacon in the store and when your phone or Tablet accepts the signal of beacon it gives away something like a promotion from the store.

1. Come Back of the Pop-Ups: Once called outdated and irritating, the pop-ups today have made a strong comeback being part of the extensive email marketing campaigns of the various brands, companies and sellers etc. The previous popup being ads that customers use to hate like anything are replaced by the new pop-ups with forms asking for an email address or sign up to exchange free offers or information etc which are quiet successful in attracting the customers up to a large extent.

1. Advent of huge images and videos for Home page: With the increase in trends demanding good visuals, there has been and advent of Huge Background images and testimonial videos for the home page of a Website. The basic idea behind using these is to catch the sight of users checking the website in leisure. And grab a possibility to get a prospective customer.

1. Virtual Sales force: Earlier Virtual Sales team was earlier used to handle, after sales enquiries or complaints or assist buyers about the specifications before buying a product. But with the help of the new tools like Pop-Up and other chat tools, the Virtual sales force is implemented in a way as the physical team working in any showroom to convert the possible leads into customers and influence and convince them to buy products and increase sales.

1. Mobile for Survival: The compatibility of E-Commerce websites with mobile devices is not an alternative but a compulsion for Survival in the age of competition, as the number of mobile users in going up with every passing quarter of the year. Hence getting a mobile compatible Ecommerce website is a priority for surviving the heavy competition.

1. Online Loyalty Programs: This technique is however not so popular right now, but if handled with little bit of Creativity and innovation can go a long way. These programs helps to retain the customers on a long term basis and get a survey of your brand to evaluate it’s worth in the market and current position among competitors. (Exam: Evy’s Tree Rewards Program, http://www.evystree.com/pages/rewards-program)

1. Niche Sale Flashes: Flashing Sales Pop-Ups is one of the most ‘in-trend’ techniques of attracting customers. If a user is browsing through your site and you flash a Sale for certain products there is a possibility that he may buy it, the possibility enhances multiple times when you talk about a large number of users online.

1. Real time Analytics: The traditional analytics is now being replaced with the Real-time analytics, and results of this analysis are immediately executed to save the sales and prevent from losing the potential customers. It works when a customer is online his actions are monitored the moment he encounters a problem, real-time analytics along with customer support engaged offers the customer solutions to their problem and saves the sale before the customer exits from your site.

1. Order Management System: With growing transactions related to placing and delivering orders to buy products and services, there has been a need to manage the orders through a consolidated system. Here comes the OMS (Order management System) which is meant for a centralized storage and management of the orders placed and executed over the ecommerce websites, making its sales growth more effective and business process easier.

1. Protection from Fraudulent transactions: There also needs a system to manage the risk of fraudulent transactions in an ecommerce website. You need an intact security setup to manage such risk.