Since the first lemonade stand has been established, and the first glass of lemonade has been sold, the commerce has changed in the ways no one could imagine. Products delivered within 24 hours from sending an order, paying with a smile, drone delivery – all of these seemed like a futuristic science dream just a decade ago. Currently, all these and much more are part of the real upcoming digital marketing trends in ecommerce.
Now, when it comes to digital marketing latest updates, the best way to approach the change is to embrace it. If the shift is inevitably coming, the best thing we can do is prepare and adjust according to it before it becomes a global ecommerce marketing must-have.
The numbers
To begin our journey through the top marketing trends in ecommerce, we have to first through in some numbers so we know which marketing forecast exactly we are dealing with. First of all, the online marketplace is going to grow. Not a big surprise, huh?
The recent ecommerce market analysis showed a 300% growth in ecommerce sales in 2018, as opposed to the walk-in retail dropping for 50% since 2000. But that doesn’t mean the regular shopping experience will die, far from that. Ready for another number? About 75% of all buyers, according to Google и Ipsos, prefer to check the product online before buying the same product in-store. And 80% of buyers report the desire to complete the purchase using traditional retail methods, especially if the item is expensive.
The blend between two worlds is an emerging practice called – ROPO. ROPO translates to Research Online & Purchase Offline, which allows customers to research the beloved product beforehand and compare the prices on it on different ecommerce sources prior to making an actual purchase in a store.
Knowing the above-stated facts makes it much easier for business owners and marketers to plan and execute new marketing strategies, which we will discuss in the further sections below.
QR Codes
Remember our old friend – the QR code? Its boom came in the mid-2010s but has been declining since due to the need in a special application, the extra time it takes to access the app and the overall less-than-smooth process of information retention and reading.
Well, the old days are over! And the QR codes are back in the game, because virtually every person obtaining a modern-day cell phone is now able to access the encoded information, using a regular phone camera without a need for a special application or any other middle-man tool.
The takeaway? Expect to see the rise of these codes everywhere – starting from the labels in the actual physical store to the QR codes enabling virtual reality for specific items on the ecommerce websites.
Mobile Ecommerce
With the growing number of mobile users every quarter, and a growing number of the recent mobile-oriented trends in the ecommerce, it’s easy to assume mobile apps are the next big thing and every recognizable online store should have an app to assist it. Not so fast. Mobile apps really are a big step up in terms of functionality as opposed to mobile-optimized ecommerce websites, but they definitely won’t be leading the upcoming top marketing trends parade.
But you know who will be? Progressive Web Apps! Progressive Web App, or PWA for short, is one of the most important, revolutionizing and recent trends in the ecommerce world. The Progressive Web App is a “hybrid between sites and apps which combine the upsides of each and does away with the limitations”, according to Absolutnet.
PWA will load up to ten times faster than a mobile site, will be able to open offline and allow push notifications, that on its own is already a huge bonus in the job of increasing every website’s ecommerce sales. Imagine push notifications with the hottest deals, sales codes and fresh arrival notifications delivered straight to your customers’ phones! Beware the brave new world, here we come!
Social Media Marketing
Yeah, we all know about the growing power of Social Media Marketing, so what’s new about that, you would ask. Well, brace yourselves, because there’s a lot of change to come and it’s only going to increase.
First of all, the whole “generating lead” function of an ecommerce store is going to disappear. Social media giants will now not only advertise you the products which you can obtain by clicking on the post, following the link, visiting the website, and then buying, but will allow you to skip all of those steps and buy right away!
How? Well, there is already a built-in payment system added to the Instagram app for some of its users, allowing them to purchase desired goods without having to ever leave the said social media application. What’s more? It’s rumoured that Instagram is developing a separate app, dedicated to online purchases with a built-in digital wallet.
Delivery
Among the digital marketing latest updates, delivery – is one of the biggest things to focus on. With the rat race of improving our websites, services and customer experience, we formed a new generation of buyers expecting free delivery and assuming the same or the next-day shipment.
What did it result into? It made 88 percent of US online shoppers expect free delivery and making visitors more likely to abandon their shopping carts if such bonus is not available, while another 38 percent of consumers expect high-end brands to offer the urgent, same-day shipment.
What does that mean to you, as a merchant? That means you will have to adopt above-said practices to compete with other marketplaces that already do. Because according to SocialmediaToday, 72% of ecommerce users would shop more and even spend their hard-earned dollars more (!) if the same day delivery and other delivery perks were available.
Crypto
Yes, yes, you heard right – cryptocurrency is the next big thing among the top online marketing trends. Why? It’s fast, traceable, and convenient – with an extremely low transaction rate of only 0,3%, it wins over any other payment method by miles.
APM, or the Alternative Payment Methods, which include mobile payments, e-cards, digital wallets and others are set to become the second most popular ecommerce transaction method by the year 2021. Becoming the top online marketing trends among other methods of payment now, APM is predicted to grow and seize the 16,5% of the total market share.
In one case study, adding a cryptocurrency as a method of payment allowed a retailer to gather over $2M alternative currency sales in the first five months, with over 60% increase in the new customer base. Impressive, right? That’s the true power of adapting to change before it actually does happen.
