E-commerce, a term that has taken charge of the world rapidly. It’s literal meaning is commercial transactions conducted electronically on the Internet. Today the globe is relying on the internet to make processes simpler and more accessible to them and e-commerce has been a main contributing factor to that.
Some of the major emerging trends in e-commerce that we are seeing can be as stated below:
- Voice Assistants: It can be stated out of personal experience in the context with launch of voice assistants such as Alexa of Amazon & Google Assistant of Google as well as Siri of Apple that has been around for a while a person can go ahead and conduct transaction without surfing and clicking through several screens. These voice assistants do actually act as your personal assistant in this technological interface and complete several processes with certain voice instructions. That is certainly fascinating and incredible in today’s scenario. People are embracing this technology and certainly having fun playing around with it.
- Machine Learning & AI : The above example of voice assistant is certainly a subset of AI, but when speaking about Machine learning and AI there is a lot more to it. Customers are provided with personalized shopping experiences through Artificial intelligence such as chatbots that will help customers in the e-commerce space.
- Payment Gateways: There are more and more payment gateways emerging that make the entire e-commerce transaction, smooth & hassle free. The process is being worked upon by each payment gateway to make it the most user friendly, easy and delightful experience for shoppers and people carrying out online transactions. It removes the physical struggle and lets people carry out a number of day to day task by few or a single click sitting in their comfort zones.
- Analytics: All e-commerce platforms run on business intelligence and data, the analytics of e-commerce contributes to the betterment of the functioning of the e-commerce websites and makes it a much more personalized and targeted experience for customers in terms of carrying out transactions. The analytics give an insight to the user behavior due to which customized and personalized results are provided to the individuals accessing e-commerce sites.
- Content: Another major trend in e-commerce is the content that is being created, the high-quality videos that are being showcased to the customers contribute to a large extent that the customers consume the deliverables be it in terms of purchase of product or entertainment. In today’s scenario, when a huge importance is given to relevance and relatability, content is certainly becoming the King. As an old saying in business goes that Customer is King, so what needs to be served or delivered also needs to be fit for a king, hence content is going big and viral.
E-commerce is growing big and that too rapidly, there are acquisitions happening almost every week, some small ones and some big ones, to name a few will be Magento the marketing application being acquired by Adobe. In the retail space and in Indian context, Flipkart being acquired by Walmart, in the payment gateway, Ipayments acquired by Paysafe and Chillr acquired by Truecaller to name a few.
E-commerce is growing and will continue to do so, it is going to change the business landscape. These changes and advancements are to make lives simpler and smoother, with the growth of technology and advancement in it’s entirety contribute to the greater good of the world economy.