E-commerce has come a long way over a decade. People have started relying on e-commerce for small purchases. COVID-19 has made the biggest influence on e-commerce. Due to lockdown, many stores were closed for people. People have now accepted online shopping as a way of living. Custom e-commerce website development is one of the most effective solutions to minimize business impact.

Now, let’s see 2021 eCommerce Trends to watch out and prepare for.

1) Growing Voice Assistant

Voice-enabled technology is quickly shifting the buzzword for e-commerce. In 2021; voice assistants are considered to become the future of online shopping. People are adopting smart home speakers for more than just playing music and turning on the lights. According to a report, around 20% of people have started using home assistants for shopping-related stuff such as researching products, ordering them, creating reminders, and tracking deliveries. Over 55% of American households are expected to use smart home assistants by 2025, serving 100 million households.

So, how to make your eCommerce market voice search compatible? Start with optimizing content for voice search. Comprehend that up by allowing voice search for your website or app and assuring your products can be purchased entirely through voice commands.

2) Mobile Commerce Trend

As everything is on the internet, the requirement of mobile has also become necessary. The share of total e-commerce sales has increased steadily and has predicted to be 72.9% by 2021. But mobile eCommerce customers are also not easy to impress than their desktop equivalents as above 30% of them quit a transaction if they feel an eCommerce store is not mobile-friendly.

Make your eCommerce store as mobile-friendly as possible to profit from the mobile commerce trend. Setting your site through the mobile-friendliness experiment is a great start as it tells you if your store is responsive and if it has any charging issues. You can also merge with a custom web application development company to build a PWA (Progressive Web App), that offers the speed and functionality of a mobile app but within a web framework. 

3) Use of Artificial Intelligence

In e-commerce, Artificial Intelligence has helped to automate repetitive aspects related to selling, providing maintenance, and marketing, allowing you to focus on more important business problems. Online sellers have begun to appreciate this aspect of AI and are expected to pass $7 billion by 2022.

Artificial intelligence serves as a force-multiplier for e-Commerce services as it decreases the need for human interference. For example, chatbots have developed to the circumstance where 69% of consumers prefer communicating with them over humans for quick communication.

AI also opens up upselling and cross-selling opportunities as it automatically recommends related products to store’s visitors based on their browsing and buying history. This will help to gain loyal customers.

4) Experience Augmented Reality Trend

Augmented Reality is the upcoming trend that everyone is looking forward to. AR helps to feel the product up close before purchasing it. It gives personal experience to it. These features were the biggest benefit that physical retail stores experienced over their online counterparts, one that was vital enough to revoke eCommerce’s utility and attractive pricing.

This ability of AR is an even more important COVID-19-affected world where social distancing and minimizing physical contact have made touch-and-feel a no-go. 

Any customers would prefer to avoid the safety risks and hassles attached to buying from brick-and-mortar stores. It would be a good investment. 

5) Eco- friendly Commerce

Due to increasing awareness about climate change, the customers are 

Thanks to greater awareness about climate change, consumers are demanding more liability from their favorite brands when it comes to sustainability. Also known as a green business, sustainable commerce is when consumers prefer products made in an eco-friendly manner with some level of recycling. According to a survey, 65% of consumers say they would want to do business with a brand that lives by sustainable commerce disciplines. 

To make your eCommerce market more environmentally responsible, start with simple steps that communicate your plan to your customer. This includes giving eco-friendly packaging, permitting paperless to the extent possible, and focusing on the eco-friendliness of your products.

6) Multi-channel Commerce

Omnichannel Commerce might be the new term for many people. It is a strategy of making your products available over various channels to consumers who are searching for them. For example, omnichannel includes your online storefront, social media channels, physical stalls, retail pick-up points, and online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, etc.

A 2017 research that covered over 46,000 customers had 73% of people accepted that they used more than one channel when buying a product. With the increase of internet-enabled devices, it’s secure to assume that more and more consumers are initiating and concluding their buying journey on different devices and channels.By investing in an omnichannel service, you can offer a smooth buying experience across different channels. To optimizing your site for mobile, hire a dedicated developer to build a mobile app or PWA, personalize the buying experience, and offer multiple purchase options.

7) Increase in Contactless Payment

The growing expectations of consumers and the COVID-19 pandemic have seen an increase in the demand for contactless payment across the e-commerce industry. With the period of omnichannel e-commerce, voice-based smart devices are playing a significant role in promoting contactless payment with activity and preference.

Contactless payments can be made through different modes like debit, credit cards, net-banking, UPI, wallets). Retailers need to combine order management systems for efficient record management from the backend. Consumers mostly use contactless cards for purchasing the basic such as  Grocery, Pharmacy, Retail, and many others.

While contactless payment will grow aggressively in the year 2021. However, the expectation also turns around payment options. Consumers are looking for more opportunities to make payment smooth. Option to use payment providers, irrespective of the situation. Also, problem-free online shopping, simple checkout, and shipping while using global retail giants such as Amazon, Flipkart, and so on.

Final Thoughts

The Ecommerce industry is at the tip of change and consistently growing. The demand for E-commerce trends will not fade away over the decade.  It is important for e-commerce companies to stay updated with the latest trends.