If you are wondering which online shopping trend will benefit your online business, check out these 7 marketplace development trends to integrate with your business model.
An online marketplace in e-commerce is currently viewed as the most effective way to jump into the global market. It provides a customer-friendly environment where every buyer can quickly get the most desired product or service. However, successful eCommerce is not just a well-designed marketplace. You need to ensure that your audience receives the best customer experience in order to outperform your competitors.
The shortcut to it is the use of technology. With the adoption of relevant innovations, it becomes easier for any online business to attract new customers and thereby gain a competitive advantage.
If you are wondering which innovation can be a perfect match for your marketplace, look into these latest marketplace trends that you can leverage in your business.
Transactional Socials
Social media are an absolute leader in lead generation and conversion. Whatever type of online business you own, starting your ecommerce conversion funnel with social networking is a win-win scheme.
But some eCommerce companies harness the potential of social networks even further: they allow users to buy goods and services right on a social media platform skipping the checkout stage.
For instance, Instagram is tailored to show product visuals and let users quickly make transactions. Transactional social media apps seem to be the number one trend among entrepreneurs that strive to engage a larger segment of consumers and boost their sales. If it is one of your business objectives, introducing the transactional feature to your social media will be a very clever move.
In-car shopping
Statistics show that an average American spends 19 full workdays a year stuck in traffic on their commute. More and more users decide to make the most of this time by shopping online. Mobile eCommerce apps are a versatile tool for enabling car drivers to navigate your marketplace when being stuck in traffic.
Moreover, geolocation makes your company visible to potential buyers as a result of which the chance of their interaction with your platform increases. A mobile-friendly and easy-to-use marketplace targeted at car drivers gives you an advantage over other marketplace players that neglect the specific situation in which many Americans are put.
As a consequence, traffic gridlocks are no longer a waste of time for consumers but an excellent chance to get a good buying experience, whereas eCommerce businesses can attract more customers.
Progressive Web Apps
PWAs are one of the fast-growing software development trends in recent years. With the strong growth of mobile commerce, running your business on a website alone is not enough to stay in touch with your target audience. 79 percent of customers prefer placing an order with a mobile phone.
Unless your marketplace has mobile optimization features, you risk losing a fair percentage of your customers. On the contrary, a PWA is a cross between a traditional website and a mobile app that allows engaging any customer searching online.
A standard PWS works in offline mode supports notifications and secure payment methods and can be compatible with different devices. PWA implementation can be a good solution if you are struggling with a high bounce rate and need to improve your customer experience.
Voice Commands and Chatbots
Chatbot technology is an innovative trend across all businesses involved with customer service. When it comes to eCommerce, 40 percent of buyers globally start shopping with a chat message.
Today quality customer support no longer requires human assistance. A chatbot turns out to be more effective than a human agent in customer relations. It interacts with thousands of prospects concurrently, helps users handle account problems, and addresses customer complaints. This trend for replacing humans with chatbots is catching on.
The retail market sales will amount to $6.54 trillion in 2023 compared to $3.53 trillion in 2019, with over 69 percent of customers being ready to use a chatbot in their online shopping. If your marketplace has been operating without chatbot assistance, maybe it is time to upgrade your customer service system.
AI-powered Personalization
This is another crucial option that can play a decisive role in making your marketplace appealing to consumers. The purpose of this technology is to enhance the user’s process of finding relevant goods or services based on their needs and preferences. What AI-powered personalization can provide is individual recommendations with regard to the previous user searches, purchase history, favorite brands, etc.
In fact, this technology is intended to replace shopping consultants in brick-and-mortar stores by helping potential consumers find the most suitable offering faster.
Artificial intelligence algorithms can do this complicated analysis of the user’s buying behavior and needs in a heartbeat and navigate them through thousands of products and dozens of categories so as to bring them to the right product or service they are looking for. Using this IT solution is associated with increased customer satisfaction and can help a lot in retaining the client base.
AR & VR
The effectiveness and popularity of a marketplace also depend on other factors, including good product visualization. This is exactly where the use of AR/VR technology can make a valuable contribution. The thing is that this technology has already penetrated the eCommerce industry and proved a high level of satisfaction among customers willing to test products remotely.
If the goods sold on a marketplace can be viewed by customers with the help of VR headset or glasses, it means that potential buyers can not only better understand the properties and physical dimensions of the desired product but can also put more trust in the sellers once they realize that the product is real.
Overall, VR/AR technology is no longer an innovative feature for marketplaces but rather an urgent necessity for those businesses aimed at winning the tough competition on the market.
eWallets
Finally, what every buyer values in online shopping is convenient payment options. A time-consuming and complex checkout process is one of the common reasons why many eCommerce businesses fail to convert leads to paying customers. By contrast, Google and Apple Pay allow cutting an average checkout time considerably and ensure fast and secure online payments.
An eWallet system benefits any marketplace by preventing customers from abandoning and speeding up the purchase process as a whole. In the end, it contributes to better UX and higher sales revenue because consumers end up being satisfied with the customer journey from start to finish.
Why Keep Abreast of Marketplace Development Trends
One big reason to consider the implementation of any of the trendy technologies above is a personalized customer journey that proves efficient in shaping customer loyalty and delivering customer-oriented services. Personalized eCommerce is the next frontier in the global marketplace. By harnessing these innovations, you have a chance to be amongst the best business players.
