7 Must To Know E-Commerce Trends For Online Shops In 2017

A buyer has added the same bag to his cart on two e-commerce websites. He is waiting for some additional discount on the INR 3,500 bag to hit the buy now button. And ding! A notification pops up on the screen about a discount offer on the bag from one of the sites. He instantly buys the item from the site that just offered an extra discount and left the semi-loaded cart page of the other e-commerce site as it is.

The game was played with Big Data, the key factor which is influencing more than 59% of the online buyers while choosing between two sites for the same product. One of the e-commerce sites was smarter to make use of the Big Data to take a look into the customers buying journey and understand their behavior to seal the deal; the other one waited for the buyer to make a purchase but was ultimately abandoned for their competitor. Its frightening to think how much business an online store can lose just because of being incognizant towards the one of latest trends in online shopping industry. And there are many more, which may be decisive in setting the success and profit score for online shops in 2017, so let's have a look at 7 most important e-commerce trends for 2017.

Big Data For Personalized Experience

Big data is certainly the ruling trend for the year 2017. This would be a year of smart predictions for the e-commerce industry. Big data, which has stored all the information about the customer's behavior, would help you track the customer journey and analyze the behavior to offer a more personalized experience to the customers. Real Time Big Data Analytics (RTBDA) is yet another emerging trend in the use of Big Data that would detect and resolve issues at the time of purchase itself rather than post-sale servicing. With big brands like Amazon, Ebay, Walmart and Macy's using Big Data to make their business bigger, 2017 should be the year you also make effective use of this data.

M-Commerce Getting A Strong Hold

With mobile traffic taking over the desktop and other devices in 2017, it has become definitely clear that mobile has gotten a strong hold in the e-commerce industry. A research by Ivesp substantiates the point with its research results which state that by the end of 2017, the number of mobile phone users making some form of e-commerce transaction would increase from 1.6 billion in 2016 to 2 billion. The e-commerce sites would be designed uniquely for mobiles to sync perfectly with the hand-held device.

AI Based Chatbots

Chatbots have been offering their assistance to the buyers for more than a year now. What's new in 2017 for chatbots is that they will become smarter and more intelligent with the use of Artificial Intelligence. These AI-based chatbots would interact with the customer in a more intelligent manner, understanding their needs and offering quick solutions. The smartest chatbots would easily engage the customer and precisely understand what the customer is looking for to help in increasing the conversion rates.

Social Media Selling

Social media is an amazing platform to attract more leads. As per a study by Global Web Index , customers tend to research about the products on various social media platforms before making up their mind to finally buy the product. Big players have expanded their product sale from sole website to various social media platforms to increase their reach. 2017 would be a year when social commerce would be trending fast in the e-commerce world. The use of tools like Curalate and Soldsie would help the online shops to get valuable referrals from their social media accounts.

Fast/Same Day Delivery

With customers becoming more restless and anxious to get their products delivered in the least possible time, it will not be surprising if we told you that faster rather same day delivery would be the new trend in 2017. Online buyers demand better services from the e-commerce retailer's end and are not interested in waiting for days to get the product delivered. The keenness to get the product delivered on the same day is so much so that even 29% of the customers would willingly pay more for it, says a Forrester report.

Age-Responsive Design

One size fits all is an old-school formula for your e-commerce site. The latest trend in e-commerce 2017 would be an age-responsive design that would understand the shopping behavior of the customer according to their age to offer a more specific design for all types of customers and keep them engaged. Use of web analytics would increase and e-commerce sites would define their audience to offer a more age-responsive design. The content on the e-commerce site would adapt automatically based on their age.

Prioritizing The Videos

2017 will be the year when the focus would shift from uploading videos on YouTube to using product-specific videos on the e-commerce site itself. Videos tend to increase the user engagement by 340% and also boost the add-to-cart rate by 74%. Online retailers would search for more ways to optimize their videos on the sites to increase their sales through these engaging videos. Videos would become more shoppable with a gradual decrease in the use of pop-up cards for sale. In order to attract and satiate the thirst of todays shopper, the above-mentioned trends are a must follow. Everything, including big data, chatbots, shoppable videos, age-responsive design, m-commerce, social selling and same day delivery, would help you gain a competitive edge in 2017.