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In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche

Market Wisdom

Four eCommerce Trends That Will Dominate In 2020

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In a world of digital natives, eCommerce is the perfect business model to reach out to a diversity of customers. It promises improved marketing, better service delivery, and personalized customer service. While it does come with this benefit galore, it also increases the competition level among businesses, with all key participants looking to hoard the largest market share possible.

As long as you can embrace the current eCommerce trends, remaining competitive becomes easy. The trick is to find everything that makes the customer tick and work out ways to improve your business model accordingly. While 2019 was a huge year for eCommerce based businesses, 2020 will make eCommerce stronger.

Here are some trends to watch out for in 2020:

The Diversification of Payment Processing

Your payment processing system will have a huge impact on your cart abandonment rates. In fact, checkout optimization has the potential to give back the US eCommerce industry as much as $260 billion, which would have been lost in sales, according to Fit Small Business. The trick is to make the checkout process flawless for your customers.

Ideally, this will involve implementing as many payment options as possible with regard to the most popular payment option for your customers. If there are any new payment options that are becoming mainstream, it might pay to embrace them too. For instance, digital wallets like Google Pay and Apple Pay, as well as instant layby like ZipPay, are gaining traction among eCommerce customers since they offer a hassle-free approach to payment.

When using these payment options, as well as your physical payment methods, you should consider consolidating them into a single platform to make their management flawless. This will also give you control over the type of currency used. Also, look for ways to reduce the hassle you have to go through during your invoice management process, such as through investing in receipt OCR technology. Instead of having to scan through receipts manually, OCR machines will streamline this process for you by transcribing the scanned documents, according to Taggun.io, one of the leaders in providing those services.

PWA Will Become a Necessity for Ecommerce Sites

In a nutshell, a progressive web app (PWA) is a mobile website that mirrors the appeal of native apps. While big companies like Google and Twitter have been using PWA technology for long, it has been bleeding over to eCommerce websites, such as the Aliexpress site.

Ideally, the aim is to ensure that customers can use your site on their mobile phones without it feeling like a foreign entity. If the user is logging into your website using an Apple device, it will match the appeal of iOS apps, and it will look like an Android app when used on an Android device.

The idea is to offer a seamless and comfortable experience for users shopping from their devices. They won’t need to download your app to get this. Soon enough, PWA technology will turn into more of a necessity than a luxury for eCommerce businesses. The speed, functionality, and navigability of your site will all be essential for the success of your business even beyond 2020, and PWA technology can help propel it all.

Increased Focus on Dynamic Pricing

Often, businesses look to undercut their competition by selling their products at a lower price than them. This results in a price war, a war without winners. For smart businesses to avoid this race to the bottom, they have been using big data analysis technology to pick the right pricing model for their business. Typically known as dynamic pricing, this trend will require you to price products based on context.

It involves trying to identify the price that will offer you the best chance to make a sale without hurting your ideal profit margins. This will require you to access and analyze data concerning competitor prices, perceived product value, and market demands. You also need to act on this data in real-time to use it optimally. Personalized pricing will continue to grow through 2020 and beyond.

Take a Page from the Fast-Fashion Playbook

The fast fashion industry, which is run by brands like H&M and Zara, has taken the eCommerce world by surprise. These companies have revolutionized their eCommerce practices in various ways, including:

  • Improved agility and speed in order fulfillment and product development
  • Leveraging influencer endorsements.
  • Embracing social sales.
  • Embracing sustainability

Copying what these companies are doing will offer your success both offline and online. For instance, Zara’s just in time approach looks to reduce waste by offering the company the exact amount of resources it needs at a time. If you also embrace influencer marketing, you will get to earn the trust of customers by linking your brand message to familiar faces.

Conclusion

As the eCommerce industry grows, businesses are making their initiatives customer-based and technology-based. The industry is shifting with the increasing advancements in technology, and brands that manage to keep up will be on the winning end of the spectrum. Give your business a competitive edge in the industry by embracing the above trends.