Behaviors That Will Shape the Future of E-commerce
Estimated reading time: 8 Min
The future of e-commerce is defined by new behaviors that are gaining strength in 2022. Discover what they are and recommendations to boost your online store.
Want your e-commerce business to succeed? Don't miss this article. We will discuss an interesting study by Shopify, where according to research, topics such as rising acquisition costs, the end of third-party cookies, and social commerce will be decisive for online sales in the coming years.
Future of e-commerce: more opportunities = more competition
It is no secret that e-commerce is a powerful tool that opens doors for companies and entrepreneurs to make their brand known and sell their products online—but it also represents fierce competition, where only the best prepared, those who make their operation more efficient to achieve customer loyalty and adapt to the dynamism of this industry, will continue scaling toward success.
To stand out, e-commerce businesses must ask themselves: Are they prepared to satisfy the needs of the consumer of the future? What does this shopper look for, what are their interests, what motivates them? One magic word can resolve this question and is key to the behaviors we will see next: Trust—more specifically, trust in the brand.
Your customer must:
* Feel that the e-commerce business is transparent at all times
* See you as an authentic and professional brand
* Feel that you are always available
* Perceive that they received the best service
* Feel special to the brand
Trust represents your consumer's preference in a world of fierce competition. "Online shoppers seek differentiated experiences and brands they can connect with—brands that speak to them directly" (Morgan Marrón – Shopify).
What are your brand values? Do you identify and communicate them? Many shoppers choose e-commerce businesses they identify with through their philosophies and values—for example, environmental care, gender equity, cultural promotion, etc.
Higher acquisition costs in e-commerce: a growing behavior
It is so easy to go online and find hundreds of pages selling the same products. Faced with prominent competition, it becomes harder every day to attract the online customer's attention—and it is not only a matter of acquisition strategies, but also how much these initiatives cost e-commerce businesses.
Digital advertising is becoming a headache for online store marketing budgets. Increases in ad spend across different platforms make the cost of lead acquisition higher now. To cite just one example, the CPC (cost per click) of search ads increased 15% between January and June 2021.
"Brands are seeing that advertising costs are five times higher than before to generate the same amount of traffic." (Ben Jabbawy, founder and CEO of Privy).
And this is precisely what is projected as the first behavior in the future of e-commerce for the coming years: the higher cost for online stores to make themselves known and earn a place in consumer search rankings.
Does this mean that only businesses with greater capital will stand out on the internet? Not entirely. Here an essential factor we mentioned earlier comes into play: the online shopper's trust in the e-commerce business—a key point for establishing long-term relationships, increasing customer lifetime value, conversion rates, and thereby reducing acquisition costs.
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E-commerce in numbers
E-commerce sales did not slow down with the easing of Covid measures. On the contrary, they continue rising. According to Shopify data, "the e-commerce market is expected to grow nearly 11 trillion dollars between 2021 and 2025." Shoppers will continue visiting online stores and registering consumption figures in this channel never seen before.
Other interesting data:
* According to global projections, online sales will reach 5 trillion dollars during 2022.
* The number of online shoppers has currently surpassed 2.14 billion—that is, 27.6% of the world's population.
* 1/3 of online shoppers during 2021 were from China and the U.S.
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How to stand out among more than 24 million stores
Currently, competition is one of the greatest barriers to e-commerce growth, and it will surely continue to be.
When having a presence on advertising platforms is increasingly expensive due to high demand, customer familiarity and trust toward the brand are the lifeline many businesses hope to have. Those who have not yet achieved it compete with other factors such as price and the greatest number of benefits they can offer the user—but how profitable is this for them?
Brand building and creating a sustainable customer base is the goal current and future e-commerce businesses should aim for—something they are already aware of and have proposed as one of their main goals for 2022, among the most representative online sales brands in the market. Don't forget to include this purpose in your marketing strategies!
Read also: Online Sales: Keys to Launching a Successful E-commerce Business
Tips for winning e-commerce businesses
Earning a place in the consumer's mind—and therefore in their purchase preferences—requires building a brand with identity, differentiators, and value. When you achieve this, you not only have more loyal customers, but evangelists who talk about and recommend your brand.
Based on the above, keep in mind the following tips:
Invest in short- and long-term marketing strategies. The first will allow you to obtain valuable results for the e-commerce business immediately—in days, weeks, or at most a month. The second will help you increase your positioning and brand recall over time. Generally, long-term strategies show tangible results starting from the sixth month.
Experts recommend that 60% of your actions respond to long-term strategies and 40% to short-term ones. The following are some initiatives you can develop:
Examples of short-term actions:
* Explore new communication channels to reach your target audience. Find where your customers are and deploy your marketing actions there. For example, social media sales tend to be agile and much more dynamic, while email marketing allows you to contact the customer quickly and directly—and it continues to be one of the most effective channels.
* Highlight those differentiators that make your brand unique. Add value to your customer—don't limit yourself to selling.
* Run surveys. Research how shoppers perceive your e-commerce business—what they like, what they don't, what they would change, what they would highlight, what they would recommend to improve their purchase experience. This is important data that will allow you to implement corrective actions and keep growing. You won't have a better source of information than your customers.
Examples of long-term actions:
* SEO positioning. Standing out in search results is not something you achieve overnight. It requires different on-page and off-page SEO actions that, implemented with care and persistence, will yield results over the months.
* Focus your campaigns on generating brand recall among potential customers—but be patient. Installing yourself in the consumer's mind for what makes your e-commerce unique is usually not something that happens immediately.
* Measure and measure again. How can you know if your strategies are working if you don't measure them? How can you improve if you don't know where you stand? All actions you deploy from your e-commerce business should have measurement indicators you can analyze and compare month to month.
* You can start with some measurement indicators such as paid and organic traffic entering your e-commerce business, number of social media followers, number of conversions, among others—which will depend on your marketing strategy and business objectives.
Read also: 6 Metrics You Can't Stop Measuring in Your E-commerce Business
* Make decisions based on data analytics. After several months of measuring your different positioning and conversion actions, you will have enough data to draw conclusions and identify what works best for your e-commerce business and what doesn't. This way you can make smart, informed strategic decisions.
Other behaviors: data restrictions and online community building
Personalization has become for many online businesses one of their main tools for winning over customers. However, it is being affected by current regulations on the use of third-party cookies, which—thanks to aspects such as privacy protection—limit the reach of personalized campaigns.
This has led e-commerce businesses to rethink how they obtain data from potential customers and turn to new strategies, where community building around the brand and deploying actions that generate user trust are becoming the foundation for capturing this valuable information.
Obtain your customers' data always with transparency, indicating how you will use it and having their approval.
Social commerce: a winning behavior
"Between January and September 2021, downloads of live shopping apps increased 61%," which allows us to estimate that online sales opportunities will continue growing in the social media field, where according to experts, the percentage of sales will triple worldwide by 2025.
Among the behaviors and characteristics most valued by users who shop within these channels, it was found that:
* 58% consider that the attention received was a primary factor in their purchase decision.
* 54% state that ease and speed of communicating with the brand through their network of choice is an important differentiator.
* 46% consider that the use of product videos drove their purchase decision.
There is no doubt—e-commerce will continue conquering the world. This trend will not stop. On the contrary, every day it will require e-commerce businesses to keep reinventing themselves and devising new ways to evolve.
Are you prepared? Only those who are active, creative, trustworthy, and efficient players across all their operational fronts will be worthy of occupying a place in their customers' preferences. Make your online store a spearhead within the competition!
Looking for a partner to boost your delivery process, fulfillment, and customer satisfaction? Don't hesitate to contact us—we are the best fulfillment center for e-commerce in Mexico and Colombia. Just click here.
Information sources:
· https://www.shopify.com/research/future-of-commerce/future-of-ecommerce#Trend1
· https://digitalintheround.com/how-many-online-stores-are-there/
