There has been exponential growth in technology space in the last few years. From improvement in internet speeds, better customer targeting to implementation of AI based engines for a better shopping experience, it has become almost a race to achieve better profitability and efficiency.
Increased competition from existing large players and constant entry of new players, everyone is forced to adapt to new methods of looking for customers and marketing to them in the most efficient way possible.
From the last few years, entry of mobile and social media has upended the traditional E- Commerce channels such as websites and opened new avenues to grab eyeballs. Of course, it has been very challenging to maintain track of such changes and adapt to them as quickly as possible.
Here we are listing a few future E Commerce trends that are shaping the industry, from reputed sources that you need to be aware of.
Continued Rise of Social Commerce
It is probably the most important trends about future of E Commerce. Platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok continue to drive engagement in an inorganic way. To do this, they reward the creators that drives the users of the platform to view their content. Later, the content can be monetized and products sold either as a link or an in-content ad.
The important part of Social Commerce is a sense of community. An influencer creating a content can either have a large following or leads a group discussing specific topics.
The influencers are generally considered authority on their subject and their recommendations matter to their followers.
With attention spans going down, Social Media platforms have introduced short form videos where it is much quicker to capture attention and direct people towards an objective for brand, either by attracting leads or converting them to sales.
Rise of Automation
The use of automation is necessary when you want to minimize human interface in a known and repetitive process. This reduces the chance of errors and help optimize the process. Imagine a human sending an email manually on order completion vs sent automatically by the software system. The chance of missed email is eliminated.
The above example can be called as workflow, and many such workflows could be chained to form a complete process chain. This would ease the process and free up human resources for other important work and also that it minimizes any errors that creep up because of manual processing.
The automation will increase with time as more rule-based Automation systems allow users to set up their own workflows.
Entry of AI
When we talk about AI, we need to differentiate between two types of AI as there can be confusion about capabilities of each type.
Traditional AI: AI that is deterministic and that are known to have predictable outcomes based on the inputs. For example, predictive analysis and self-driving could be called as traditional AI.
Generative AI: This type of AI helps in text, image and music generation based on pre-set data. It is easy to create a lot of new creative materials based on the existing datasets. It is usually unpredictable and requires human oversight on its output.
More detailed comparison here
While traditional AI is used to do further analysis such as Inventory management, seasonality predictions and supply chain management, generative AI will be used to further automate customer processes such as chatbots, visual commerce and price optimization.
Virtual Reality
The emergence of Virtual Reality and Augmented reality might have a significant impact on E Commerce. The devices allow users to experience a product in almost real time. One can also do product demonstrations in three dimensions and make the experience immersive.
You might have already seen the process of trying on for example, spectacles, clothes or make up on your image or a computer-generated image.
The next stage would be for you to take a walk into an integrated, virtual store and pick and view products. You can then later add these products into a shopping cart and pay for them getting the feel of an in-shop experience.
Conversational Commerce
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