What E-commerce stores should care about in 2017?

E-commerce trends in 2017

E-commerce has ventured into every field imaginable. Be it ordering electronics, jewelry, clothes, watches, shoes, medicines and what not. And it isn’t just about ordering things, it goes from monitoring your health, daily chores to practically managing your life!

E-commerce has become so popular because of number of benefits like better prices, variety, convenience, privacy, etc.

“A shopping mall in December is not a Christmas shopper’s friend. When possible, purchase gifts online”

Shopping is the first thing which comes to our mind for the festivities like Christmas and New year’s eve and we are sure you might have a giant shopping list. With the online stores for everything, people can avoid the long queues at shopping malls and shop right from their couch.

So now, that the world can order almost anything with a click, it is the best time for e-commerce stores to put the best foot forward.

“For any business, large or small, not to have an e-commerce strategy is a big mistake”

With the fierce competition in e-Commerce, companies need to map user’s entire journey and preempt what users are looking for. So, here we are presenting some handful tips that can help e-commerce stores to get more conversions, retain customers for a longer time, differentiate oneself and stay ahead of the competition. Treat this as our New Year’s gift.

6 ways to supercharge your E-commerce stores for conversions

01. Creative Curated Shop

The humdrum sameness of the e-commerce sites has made people hungrier for immersive interactions. Creative cool interactions with vibrant colors and content focused approach is the only way to grab user’s attention.

Use attractive animations to clearly highlight product benefits and club it with the power of micro interactions that will make shopping more fun. Use block color scheme, large visuals, high quality product imagery to allow for a more enjoyable browsing experience than the regular product imagery.

02. Device Agnostic – Go Progressive for e-commerce

Not everyone sticks to a single device while shopping online. People use smartphones for shopping online rather than laptops. Clearly, e-commerce stores have to optimize their site for mobile.

Brands mostly need to invest into a responsive design, or even build a mobile version of their website or go beyond to build progressive mobile apps. Responsive/Adaptive or Progressive design strategies would help generate the much required interest.

03. Scaling Personalization through effective Customer support

“Amazing things will happen when you listen to the consumer”

The best customer support experience is personalized, empathetic and effective. Smart design means treating users like friends. This traditionally is associated with well-trained personnel who talk to customers, understand their needs, problems and provide them with quick solutions.

For example: if a customer calls up the customer care to understand if there is a delivery option available in a particular pincode, the respondent can provide with the list of available COD delivery options near to that place if the delivery cannot happen in their area, allowing the customer to place the order and be happy about it while generating additional revenue stream for companies.

04. It’s Siri and Alexa’s world now

Siri is no longer the only assistant. Microsoft has Cortana, Amazon has Alexa, Google has Now and Google assistant. Companies are experimenting with novel ways to disrupt the customer service space. Devices will learn to understand users emotions.

MIT technology review, reports that researchers at Amazon are already working to give Alexa the ability to sense emotion from a person’s voice. Personal assistants will enter the e-commerce space giving successful anticipatory experiences.

We understand this may sound futuristic but machine learning and big data crunching could be the starting point.

05. Augmented and Virtual experiences create real connections

As e-commerce stores are looking to give their customers an immersive experience, virtual reality and augmented reality are being used in ever more creative ways.

VR and AR are giving customers the opportunity to view products from all angles, enhancing the presentation and bringing real-life experiences to E-commerce. Online stores can create photo-realistic 3D scenes by using computer networking, display, interaction and graphic technologies.

Brick and mortar stores are also pursuing ground-breaking ways to provide experiential centers for users to immerse in the environment while feeling fresh.

06. Online moves into the real world

Online stores have now started to move from an online pure play perspective to physical retail space with pop-ups and networks of brick and mortar stores. This will develop physical presence and enhance customer fulfillment and enhance their shopping experience. Think about it, the reverse of this is also true, brick and mortar are moving online.

An imaginative designer might help in channelizing the entire efforts of merging your experiences of offline and online so seamlessly that you don’t feel the difference.

Here’s a scenario: Imagine you are seeing a garment online and want to try it out before ordering and you clicked on map link to find the nearest location. Company sensed your intention and booked a cab for you to arrive at the store while the store manager is ready with the garment you want to try. He offers you an empty trial room. Now that the customer has tried the garment, he could go to the mobile app or site and just pay online. Bursting the queue he/she quickly gets into the waiting cab and off the customer goes FEELING HAPPY!

Final Thoughts

E-commerce stores have a world of opportunities to adapt and evolve and new business models are appearing that will have a profound influence across the domain. Technology, of course, plays a major role, but it’s not the only force at work. Brands must ensure that the experience they create, provides genuine delight and value to the customer. In this context, building a seamless shopping experience will become more important than ever before.

We surely hope that 2017 becomes the year of Omni Experience and we all could reap in the benefits. With this in mind we would like to kick start our series of blogs targeted towards wishing you a great New Year with some awesome insights.

Look forward to you sharing, commenting and liking this post because Sharing is Caring.