3 eCommerce Tech Trends to Keep an Eye On

When B2B companies are looking to innovate and create better marketing strategies, they often check out what is going on in the B2C landscape.

Well, the B2C landscape is heavily affected by eCommerce and online shopping which has been gaining more and more traction since the pandemic. Several examples include Amazon's UK 20% jump in sales, as well as Irish spending up by more than 40% in 2021. It is widely conceived that these numbers will continue to grow as Gen Z consumers find shopping online a natural and easy process. If you think about the consumer acquisition flow, it can be something like this:

Influencer promotion 🡆 Website visit 🡆 product review 🡆 customization 🡆 purchase

Several other user flows can look like this:

Google Search 🡆 Website visit 🡆 Product review 🡆 customization 🡆 purchase

FB/IG Ad 🡆 Website visit 🡆 Product review 🡆 customization 🡆 purchase

What are the trends in this area or products in this area that you are the fondest of? Why?

Trend Number 1: Customization

As you look at the user flows, it is very apparent that customers want a more personalized shopping experience, not to mention they want the thing they buy to fit in perfectly with what they already have. In essence, they are builders; they are building something. It can be a living room, a wardrobe, or a makeup collection; the point is that they are on a mission to buy something that makes sense to them.

That is why customization is one of the biggest trends in online shopping; for example, we can see how renovai, a startup that has built virtual AI shopping assistance solutions, has been able to integrate with leading brands and help them provide more customized experiences for their customers, which has been driving more revenue.

Online shopping is so attached to ROI, as it should that we also see B2B startups like renovai provide ROI calculators on their sites. When you ask Gen Z why a platform like Tik Tok has become so dominant, a lot of them will tell you that it is because Tik Tok lets them be themselves. Again, personalization. Even if they dance to the same viral song, they want to do it their way.

Trend Number 2: Direct Live Stream Shopping

Remember when the only way brands could do live shopping was via television shows? Well, now, instead of paying referral fees and paying for studio time, there are great Livestream solutions like evmux, Streamyard, and several more that help shops and brands broadcast live shopping events at ease.

That is also why platforms like Tik Tok and Amazon have integrated live shopping solutions because they know how effective they are and how their user base will continue to expand because of it. Maybe this leads to a centralized/decentralized debate; do we want certain tech giants to control the delivery of shopping services? Well, if you use a SaaS product like evmux, then you don't have to worry about that, but even if you do base your sales strategy onTik Tok or Amazon live shopping features, you are still getting a bigger piece of the cake then how it was before.

Trend Number 3: Rewards-Based On Check-Ins

This trend might be a bit more manipulative; there are several brands that reward customers if they log in every day to their website account. This makes sure to expose customers to new products, as well as form a dopamine kind of activity, and by this hooking customers to the brands. I think there must be better ways to reward customers without making them check in compulsively to their accounts.

This trend might seem, at first, very beneficial as there are more website visitors, but if the visitors are doing it only for the rewards, they will associate the brand with a kind of chore, when what brands need is to be associated with value, happiness, and an enjoying experience.

What are the positive impacts they can have on society?

A more sustainable shopping experience that is tailored to a specific person. The more tailored it is, the growing chance of the product to be used efficiently by the consumer without it going to waste.

What are predictions on how these technologies will evolve?

Shopping tech will continue to be at the forefront of tech innovation, simply because of the fact that B2C products have a chance to scale like wildfire.

What are predictions on the ethics of future societies in relation to these technologies?

As Google is removing its third-party cookies, we can understand how privacy control is being adopted by big tech. From an ethical standpoint, this will drive brands to carefully developed technologies that are able to capture insights from consumers without having to “spy” on them with third-party cookies.