The Future of E-commerce. 5 Worldwide Growth Trends

The global E-commerce market is estimated to reach a whopping $5879.1 billion by 2022. And no signs of decline have been detected. Moreover, global E-commerce sales have been steadily eating up the worldwide retail market. In fact, by 2021, it will account for 17.5% of the total global retail sales. Whatever ups and downs you may have encountered this year, the eCommerce market is still expanding bigger and brighter as ever. Which means more opportunity for growth in the future and so many new ways to find further prosperity of online platforms & brands.

However, identifying the right eCommerce trend is the next big challenge you might face. Here we will cover 5 global eCommerce trends that are shaping the future of this industry as we speak.

Mobile is continuously shaping the landscape of customer engagement. Shoppers desire to accomplish their transaction without having to go through a desktop. They want that convenience of shopping right at their fingertips. With mobile accounting to $175.4 billion in revenue by the year 2020, mobile shopping will still be as relevant in 2020 and the next couple of years as ever. There's an immense opportunity for potential revenue to go after because 54% of consumers already used an app for their shopping activities.To join in the mobile shopping revolution you should take care of next things:

• User-friendly mobile check-out
  
  
• Optimise your website for mobile (app or PWA)
  
  
• For cashback & coupons platforms it is essential to implement such tools as cashback reminder ("Cashback Bubble") in order to eliminate users' loss.
  
  

Future generations will find ways to take mobile shopping, mobile checkouts, mobile payments to another level.

A very recent trend to the eCommerce world is the rise of voice technology. Voice searching gives consumers multiple ways to be served, therefore the introduction of voice devices, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, has already led to new ways on how people interact with brands through voice-activated online browsing. This opens up a new channel for eCommerce businesses to sell and grow their businesses. In fact, it is estimated that by 2020, voice commerce will generate a total of $40 billion in sales in the U.S. alone. Around 20% of smart speaker owners use them for shopping-related activities, whether that's ordering products, creating a reminder, conducting research or tracking deliveries. This figure is expected to jump to 52% within the next 3 years.

AR and VR's immersive user experience increases product value. In fact, a survey pointed out that 40% of the consumers are even willing to pay more if AR is a part of their shopping experience. In the current global situation it is essential to allow customers to try before they buy. AR not only helps alleviate the issues mentioned but it also boosts sales and improves a brand's image because of the immersive experience. By integrating AR with your app, shoppers stay 2.7 times longer and are 11 times more likely to make a purchase. VR is not too far behind. Google has already shipped around 15 million cardboard headsets, and you bet people would want to use them for online shopping. While the two eCommerce giants – Amazon and Alibaba – made some efforts to bring online stores to life using VR. Both of them attempted to create virtual stores for shoppers and still continue investing in the technology.