With the emergence of eCommerce as one of the most dynamic industries in the beginning of the 21st century, many software platforms have advanced and evolved to cater to the present needs of today. This is plainly evident with major ecommerce platforms doing their best to match today’s trends in the ecommerce world.
Hence, why not spend a moment to take a peek at the best ecommerce trends that promise to take your business through the roof in the coming years:
#1. Personalized Website Design
Today’s ecommerce websites are high on providing personalized experiences to customers all around the world. So, if users feel bored with the design of the websites they interact with often, the days of personalized and customized interfaces are not far away. This will allow individuals to introduce aspects such as personalized navigation, layout, ads placement, and the sidebars can be put anywhere the visitor wants. Ecommerce website development of the future will have to take this trend into consideration.
What you can expect
- Personalized navigation
- Personalized and customized interfaces
- Personal preferences related to ad placement
- Sidebars can be placed wherever the visitor wants
#2. Virtual Trial Rooms/ Mirrors
Some ecommerce websites are even becoming more innovative by allowing their customers to virtually try on their products. They allow customers to connect their web cams to their websites, while letting them virtually drag and drop over their own image. Therefore, customers can stand in front of a virtual mirror or enter a virtual trial room and try their products, as they would try in a brick and mortar store. This is quite an innovative challenge yet a great opportunity for ecommerce website development professionals to showcase their skills.
What you can expect
- Innovative trial rooms
- Virtual mirrors to try on products
- Easily drag and drop product images on your own picture
- Get an easy feel of how you would look in them
- In a nutshell, you be the model for your own choice of products!
#3. Faster load times
As time passes by, it is expected that more and more people will shop online. Hence, their expectation will also increase, leading to more impatience with load times. According to past statistics, the maximum time that people would wait before they would abandon a website would be eight seconds. However, the time that they expect to wait today is hardly three seconds.
This is proving to be a serious challenge to some ecommerce websites, as they have thousands of products to display. Faster load times can be expected as technology will take care of the geographic location of the individual and deliver streamlined and tailored content. Load times are thus a big challenge for forward thinking professionals in ecommerce website development.
What you can expect
- Websites that load faster
- Straight forward content
- Instant Buy/Not Buy decision
- Faster check out times
- Minimal wait times for delivery
#4. The use of Minimalist Design
Minimalist design will become the in-thing as modern day customers will go online for nearly everything. Complex images as well as flash will be replaced by bold colors as well as crisp edges. A more minimalistic approach will be further defined by simpler as well as less intricate payment processes. The challenge for ecommerce website development will thus be to incorporate minimalist design as part of their endeavor.
What you can expect
- Less intricate payment process
- Faster buy decisions
- Lesser time duration between pay and receive
- Less of flash
- Personalized sales
Because of the proliferation of mobiles and smart-phones, customers are increasingly becoming choosier about making purchases on ecommerce stores via their smart phones. The desktop era is slowly transitioning to a mobile era, which is good news for many e-tailers around the globe. Presently, the time that it takes to market a product has reduced considerably, hence throwing up a plethora of options for paid social campaigns.
This is an innovative and inventive challenge for ecommerce website development professionals who will need to weave in code and integrate their skills to consider the tactical ecommerce campaigns that will be necessary to launch from time to time.
What you can expect
- Buy directly from a social web-store
- Interact 1-2-1 with a representative in real time
- Participate in a social campaign as a buyer and leave real time opinions
#6. Embedded videos
The last, but not the least challenge, for ecommerce website development professionals is to embed product videos while consumer preferences gyrate towards viewing videos in the product panel. Videos can display to people how their chosen product will look on a model, giving them a fair idea of how their choice would look on them. These are one more tactic to use that can instill trust in your customer.
What you can expect
- Ecommerce websites with more product videos
- Videos of product presentations
- Corporate honchos talking straight to you about their products/services
- Easy buy videos explaining you how to buy and use products
Thus, as ecommerce gains more and more prominence on the social and business scene, ecommerce website development will gain equal importance as trends, preferences, and choices change dynamically in the coming years.
Images: ”e commerce. world map illustration design over a blue background/ Shutterstock.com“
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