ECommerce trends are growing. ECommerce has presented business owners with an opportunity to reach wider markets. In Singapore alone, the overall eCommerce market share is expected to hit $4.99 billion by the end of 2019, with an annual growth rate of 14.7%. The same data see Singapore as an ideal gateway to deeper eCommerce penetration as it sets advanced standards on digital trade in support of the digital economy.

ECommerce is not showing signs of slowing down anytime soon. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Even Shopify has this to say about global eCommerce: “The shadow of global eCommerce looms too large to ignore.”

A portion of success in this ever-growing industry must be alluded to understanding and adapting eCommerce trends that may impact your own venture. Guarantee the success of your own eCommerce journey with this list of eCommerce trends that you should prepare for in 2019 and beyond.

• Prevalence of Omnichannel Integration & Personalisation
• Convenience of M Commerce
• “Voice” in Everything—Searches & Assistants
• Video is Dominating the Stage
• Content as the Undisputed King

ECommerce Statistics to Keep in Mind

Before we explore the eCommerce trends, here are some helpful statistics you need to keep in mind so you can stay on top of things.

• Rough estimates say that there will be 1.92 billion digital buyers in 2019
• ECommerce sales account for 13.7% of worldwide retail sales
• Before making an online purchase, 85% of consumers conduct online searches
• 57% of online shoppers make purchases from overseas retailers

Booming eCommerce Trends

The borderless nature of eCommerce makes it easy for new markets to join in. But as the market expands, so do consumer preferences and behaviours. To get ahead of an equally growing competition, you need to stay on top of things.

Here are notable eCommerce trends you can follow to beat your competition!

Prevalence of Omnichannel Integration & Personalisation

Omni-channel integration aims to provide a seamless customer experience for customers. It’s a multichannel sales approach that offers a cohesive brand experience to users. HubSpot expands on this definition and says this about omnichannel integration: “(Omnichannel integration) delivers a seamless experience across channels and factors in different devices in these channels to ensure that the customers’ interactions with a brand are consistent.” The whole idea of omnichannel includes personalising every customer experience. To do this, it’s imperative that you sync and connect all your sales channels. That means having a social media presence (preferably platforms that enable direct sales, like Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Stories) on top of your eCommerce site and/or brick and mortar store. A study by Harvard Business Review of the shopping behavior of over 46,000 customers reveals that 73% of customers are considered “omnichannel customers”.

Convenience of M Commerce

People continue to love and turn to the convenience of mobile shopping. With that said, the mobile revenue is expected to be about $175.4 billion by 2020. On top of this growth in mobile usage, Google also unrolled its mobile-first indexing setting in July. This means that Google will now first look at the mobile versions of the page versus its desktop counterparts, so making sure your own apps are optimised to run properly on mobile devices is no longer just a choice but now a compulsory part of the whole eCommerce journey. So, it’s in a business’s best interest to include a mobile app in its strategy. Getting into this “mobile first” type of thinking will benefit your brand. No idea how much it would take for your brand to build its own mobile app in Singapore? Here are some factors affecting development costs you may check out.

“Voice” in Everything—Searches & Assistants

Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri have recently dominated the tech industry. Amazon sits at the forefront of this new lucrative channel when they activated voice purchasing in 2016 with Amazon Echo. What’s more, voice commerce is estimated to generate a total of $40 billion in sales by 2020! More and more people are becoming more comfortable with speaking directly to their smart devices instead of typing their searches. Tech giant Microsoft is set to up its voice transcription algorithm so that it sounds more related to human searches.

Video is Dominating the Stage

When we wrote about the latest video marketing content tips, we mentioned that “Video marketing not only interests; it engages consumers better.” Videos truly play a massive role in eCommerce’s future. HubSpot dubs it the “strategy of the future”. Customers hanker for good and immersive experiences related to the products they use and the services they consume. Coupling this desire with the video format’s growth offers a lucrative avenue for growing a brand’s reach and influence. So, more and more brands are incorporating video promotions into their strategies to provide customers with a more hands-on visualization of using their products and services. Research suggests that 60% of shoppers would even rather watch a product video than read product descriptions when they’re shopping. Additionally, 64% of shoppers finalise a purchase after watching a video.

Content as the Undisputed King

Everything about the market evolves—from the type of content they consume to the way they go about consuming it. What doesn’t change, however, is the inherent need for people to connect with a brand they patronise and content remains to be one of the most effective ways of galvanising that connection. Content is the undisputed king in marketing and the same thought rings true for eCommerce storefronts. Nik Sharma, Head of DTC at VaynerMedia, even says that “Successful brands heavily use written, audio, visual, and experiential content to drive full-funnel marketing campaigns: awareness, interest, desire, and conversion.” Great content does a lot for customers and when done right, offers a cost-effective way of generating sales for a brand. No idea how to grease your own content marketing journey? Here are five strategies for creating shareable content you should keep in mind.

ECommerce trends and statistics keep you guided on your own eCommerce journey.

Keep these five trends in mind and integrate these into your own brand’s eCommerce journey. Some of the technical stuff can be quite daunting. Leave those stuff out to trustworthy web development and digital marketing agencies like Amber Creative and unlock the potential of your own eCommerce site now!