If Black Friday and Cyber Monday are any indication, 2017 should be a good year for e-commerce. Indeed, in the United States alone, shoppers made an estimated $3.34 billion in online purchases on Black Friday and a whopping $3.39 billion the following Monday, breaking previous records.
Besides offering hard-to-resist deals, retailers took advantage of a variety of technologies and apps to help drive sales this season. And analysts and online retail watchers predict these five digital retail trends will be (or become) even bigger in the new year.
1. Mobile commerce
Mobile commerce has been steadily growing, but if Black Friday and Cyber Monday mobile sales are any indication – with U.S. shoppers alone purchasing over $2.4 billion worth of goods via a mobile phone or tablet on those two days alone – 2017 is going to be huge.
2. Chatbots
“Chatbots exploded in 2016,” says Daniel Brzezinski, CMO & vice president of Marketing & Product Development, GetResponse. “Everyone from technology companies like Facebook to Microsoft and retail brands like J. Crew and Staples have invested in the space. And it’s clear why.
Chatbots signal a more real-time, personalised approach to customer engagement,” he says. “It’s ‘conversational commerce’ that, despite being a simulation, feels more human and authentic than most marketing. Bots offer a convenient, responsive form of interaction customers crave.”
3. Social shopping
“Social media already influences consumer behaviour, but in 2017 it will become a bigger driver of direct transactions,” predicts Bart Mroz, cofounder & CEO, SUMO Heavy.
“Instagram recently rolled out a new feature that enables brands to tag products that are featured in the photos they post (much like the way a user would tag his or her friends). By tapping on those product descriptions, users are able to go to the brand’s website to learn more and make a purchase.”
4. Personalised retargeting
“For retailers, the online shopping cart abandonment rate globally is 75 percent, a record-high,” says Brzezinski. “Mobile has made things worse as attention spans tend to be shorter on smaller screens, despite driving a higher share of e-commerce traffic than desktop. As the cart abandonment problem has increased, e-tailers are adopting a wider set of tools to try to counteract lost transactions.”
5. Virtual retail
“Virtual reality (VR) is changing the retail landscape by fusing together the offline and online environment for enhanced customer engagement,” says Paul Miller, CMO Americas, Xero. “VR is making it possible for sportswear shoppers to test out gear in environments it would be used in or try on clothing in a virtual dressing room.
(Source: CIO)