E-commerce Trends 2024 and Market Overview
The e-commerce sector is experiencing steady annual growth:
- By 2024, global e-commerce retail sales could reach $6.33 trillion.
- Global e-commerce revenue could reach $3.178 billion in 2024
- The average revenue per user (ARPU) in 2024 in e-commerce will be around US$1,387.00
As you can see, the numbers are pretty impressive. Let’s also add some e-commerce predictions from Forbes Advisor:
- The e-commerce market is expected to reach a value of over $7.9 trillion by 2027
- In 2024, 20.1% of retail sales will be online and by 2027, the number will grow to 23%
- E-commerce sales will see an overall increase of 8.8% in 2024
So, what is the reason behind such rapid and constant growth and what influences e-commerce trends?
Sustainable trade
Modern customers are environmentally conscious and expect companies to follow suit. One of the biggest issues is the amount of CO2 emissions from freight transportation, with the amount predicted to reach 25 million metric tons by 2030, which is, frankly, terrifying.
Numerous surveys show that customers want companies to be more environmentally conscious and value sustainability. For example, customers want companies to use less packaging and try to use less plastic and choose sustainable packaging instead. And since sustainability is such a hot topic, here are some ideas on what your company can do:
- Switch to zero-carbon (or sustainable) packaging
- Reduce the amount of plastic used
- Implement recycling
- Implementing a zero waste approach to warehouse management
Headless E-commerce
Last but not least in the list of most anticipated e-commerce growth trends is headless e-commerce, which means that the frontend and backend parts of the e-commerce store are decoupled and communicate via an API. This approach provides store owners with several significant benefits:
- Immense creative control as you can configure different frontend experiences for different platforms;
- Improved performance thanks to faster store loading;
- Selection of the most suitable and preferred tools and services.
By choosing the headless approach, you can significantly improve the omnichannel experience, accelerate the development process and integrate the necessary services seamlessly. And to support this statement with numbers, here are some of the reports from Gartner and Salesforce:
- 80% of brands that don’t yet have a headless architecture plan to adopt it in the near future;
- Using a headless architecture can lead to a 20% increase in revenue.
As you can see, the numbers are quite convincing. However, before switching to headless architecture and before following the latest e-commerce trends, it is important to review your current infrastructure, identify the main bottlenecks and pain points, and determine whether switching to headless architecture will really bring the expected results and benefits.
In Summary: Online Shopping Trends and Their Future
The world of e-commerce is changing rapidly and customers are dictating these changes. To stay flexible and competitive, it is essential for e-commerce businesses to invest in reliable and scalable technology solutions and adopt technological innovations and the latest e-commerce trends , but only after carefully analyzing whether these innovations will bring tangible benefits. We hope our article has helped you decide what your next step will be in terms of engagement, conversion and user-centricity of your e-commerce store.
Advanced on-site customization
The concept of personalization is not new, but as technology advances, businesses have more opportunities to understand their customers better and not only provide them with relevant offers but also predict what they might be interested in. The main driving force behind this is the use of artificial intelligence and its subset, machine learning. These technologies enable efficient collection of user data and its in-depth analysis, thus providing valuable insights that can be used to shape your marketing strategy. This is why personalization is confidently on the list of future e-commerce trends.
According to a Sender report, 56% of shoppers are likely to return to a website if it provides personalized offers, and first-time shoppers find personalization a great help in navigating a website. With this in mind, businesses may want to review or redesign their on-site personalization to keep up with this e-commerce trend.
Onsite, or “on a website,” personalization means that you dynamically adapt your website to your customers and follow an interest-based approach to provide timely and relevant offers to specific users. While personalization itself is not a new concept, it can be constantly improved through the use of newer technologies and through ongoing customer research. When it comes to onsite personalization, the main areas of focus are:
- Dynamic content personalization: The content of a web page changes based on the user’s actions (e.g. browsing history), thus remaining relevant and capturing the user’s attention.
- Different approach to different user groups: It is important to distinguish between existing, new and returning customers and to offer them appropriate offers.
- Intelligent upselling and cross-selling: Through the use of Machine Learning, you can propose relevant and unique offers to each user.
- Personalized recommendations: Based on a user’s preferences and behavior, your website can offer unique recommendations, specifically designed for them.
With the help of data segmentation and analytics, businesses can encourage buyers to complete their conversions more effectively, as users will receive unique experiences from the very beginning. But to achieve this, you will first need to re-engineer your data collection and analysis processes, and you may also want to consider implementing an ML solution for this. Fortunately, there are many ready-made ML tools available in the market, although a custom one may provide you with more accurate and valuable results.
E-commerce growth trends
The e-commerce industry and online shopping trends are being shaped by a variety of factors. Adoption of new technologies, evolving customer behavior, the residual impact of COVID-19, globalization—all of these are influencing the way people shop. And considering the fact that an average user can now instantly access both local and international stores from their mobile device, it is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to stay competitive.
This is where adopting the latest online shopping trends plays its role in giving a business a competitive edge. By knowing these trends, an e-commerce business can significantly improve both its customer service and internal operations, thereby increasing the number of conversions and gaining user loyalty and interest.
The Growth of M-Commerce
Another big trend among e-commerce industry trends is M-commerce. Mobile commerce, or M-commerce for short, continues to gain traction, meaning people continue to shop on their mobile devices. According to Statista, 60% of online sales are attributed to mobile shopping, and mobile sales are expected to account for 62% of all retail sales by 2027 (Forbes Advisor).
What does this tell us? That people love to shop directly from their smartphones and mobile devices. After all, it allows them to shop anytime, anywhere, which is very convenient. But what does this mean for businesses, though? There are several things to keep in mind if you want to be more mobile-friendly and follow the trend:
- Make sure your store is responsive and runs smoothly on mobile devices;
- Consider developing a separate mobile application for your store;
- Encourage users to make purchases from their mobile devices by offering specialized deals and discounts;
- Use advanced technologies like AI, VR and AR in your mobile app to increase user engagement.
- Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Technologies
- Online shopping has many advantages, but one of its biggest disadvantages is the inability for customers to try on a particular product. AR and VR technologies seem to solve this problem, so they are on the list of big e-commerce trends.
- With the help of AR and VR, e-commerce store owners are enabling their customers to try on products remotely. One of the biggest examples is the Warby Parker app that allows virtual try-on of eyeglasses, and that’s just one example. Ikea, Target, Sephora, and other big brands are all following suit in terms of enabling a complete shopping experience without the need to visit physical stores.
- While the use of AR and VR technologies is not mandatory, it certainly helps improve the customer experience and add a competitive edge to a business. Most customers are very positive about using AR in e-commerce, and businesses that are already using it see a high conversion rate. That said, you may want to explore ways in which AR and VR can help you elevate your business and provide real value to buyers.
Social commerce
- Social media has become more than just socializing long ago and is now one of the most promising spaces for online commerce. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest now offer both business owners and shoppers an easy and effective way to purchase products online, so naturally social commerce is among the top e-commerce trends of 2024 and beyond.
- Remember that mobile commerce is also on the rise? This could be a major factor influencing the growing popularity of social commerce. Since customers use their mobile devices to browse social media, an option to shop on these platforms is part of an intuitive and frictionless user journey. And according to Accenture’s report, social commerce sales are expected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025, which is pretty impressive. So, if you don’t have official business accounts on the most popular platforms yet, now is the best time to start one.
- Social Commerce vs Social Selling
- When talking about trends in social commerce and e-commerce, it is important to also mention social selling, as these two terms are often confused.
- Social selling refers to the process of building relationships with your target audience via social media. This includes responding to their DMs or leaving comments, and the main focus is on building trust, authority, and loyalty. Social commerce, on the other hand, focuses primarily on selling the product or service.
Omnichannel retail
Omnichannel retail, also known as hybrid commerce, is a mix of online and physical commerce and is one of the biggest emerging trends in e-commerce. Hybrid commerce means that customers receive a seamless experience across both online and physical stores and can select the most convenient method of purchase using multiple platforms and channels.
It is important to note that omnichannel commerce, in general, is not a new concept. We have already seen it as companies recognized the need to provide the same user experience across desktop, mobile, and physical stores. Now, customers want even more convenience, and with that said, companies need to consider the following e-commerce trends.
BOPIS
BOPIS stands for buy online, pick up in-store and involves a customer ordering a product online and picking it up at a physical store at their convenience. This model is also called click-and-collect method and is gaining immense popularity due to its convenience.
The BOPIS approach allows customers to combine the ease and security of online shopping and payment with the freedom to choose the most convenient time and date to pick up the product. However, this business model also brings several new challenges for store owners. In particular, it requires a potential reorganization of inventory and supply chain management so that there are no product shortages.
The main benefits that BOPIS offers to buyers are:
- Zero shipping costs
- Speed of service
- Easy product navigation
- Safe and easy payments in multiple formats
- 24/7 store access
For retailers, BOPIS adds a competitive edge and helps attract customers to physical stores. However, before implementing this model, a business owner must carefully examine and reorganize processes to support the increased demand for products.
ROPE
ROPO stands for “research online, buy offline” approach to shopping. Like BOPIS, this method involves a user browsing an online store and researching available products, but purchasing them in a physical store. This provides a perfect opportunity for business owners to implement AR and VR, so users can “try on” products remotely and make a purchasing decision in advance.
Curbside Pickup
Another interesting e-commerce trend that is gaining popularity is curbside pickup. It works as follows:
- A customer browses an online store and selects a product and a suitable store for collection, where the product is available
- A customer buys a product online
- The system notifies the store of the purchase, so that employees can prepare the order
- A customer receives a notification when the order is ready
- A customer arrives at the store and a store employee or representative delivers the order.
In simple terms, curbside pickup is similar to drive-through, but with curbside pickup, you place your order in advance. This shopping method is also becoming popular for its convenience, so store owners may want to consider it along with other options.
Third party data
Modern consumers are very conscious of data privacy and transparency, and most of them want to control exactly how companies collect and use their data. Add to that the fact that both Apple and Google have ended support for third-party cookies in 2023, and you can see why zero-party data is on the rise and is a predicted trend in digital commerce.
Zero-party data is data collected directly from users, with no third parties involved. An example of such data would be a user filling out a form directly on your website. Of course, you still need to explain why you are collecting the data and how it will be used, and you need to provide an option to opt out of data collection.
Some of the options for third-party data collection include:
- Quizzes and surveys
- Pop-up
- Customer surveys
- Tributes
- Onboarding Questionnaires
- Competitions
One of the most effective ways to engage users is to provide them with something valuable in exchange for their data. It can be a discount, a coupon, or a special offer, whatever your imagination can come up with.
Subscription models
Customer loyalty is extremely important. According to Semrush, the cost of retaining a customer is less than the cost of acquiring a new one, while loyal customers tend to spend more and are more loyal. So, business owners should consider various ways to retain their customers and a subscription model is a perfect solution and one of the trends in the e-commerce industry.
Here’s how it works. You offer your customers a monthly (quarterly or even yearly) subscription and they receive goods from your stores. This approach has an element of surprise (customers don’t know in advance what’s in their subscription box) and encourages shoppers to make a long-term commitment to your store. Of course, they should be able to easily cancel their subscription at any time, but the reality is that most users love this approach to online shopping.
Numbers from various reports also support the growing popularity of subscription models. According to a BusinessWire report, the subscription market is expected to reach $2 trillion by 2028, and 70% of business leaders see the subscription model as an essential part of e-commerce. That said, if the nature of your business allows it, you may want to consider implementing a subscription model to improve customer retention and reduce churn rates.
Using Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has become a go-to technology for many industries, and e-commerce is no exception. Although it has been around for a while, experts predict that the number of its use cases in the e-commerce domain will increase and more companies will adopt it, thus placing AI among the most promising e-commerce trends. Below, we list the most important AI use cases and benefits that can be seen as B2C e-commerce trends for the future.
More efficient management of internal processes
Businesses need to adapt to changing customer demands. To do this, they need to create accurate forecasts and predict potential supply and demand, as well as better manage their inventory and processes. Automation combined with AI creates a powerful technology combination that e-commerce businesses can use to leverage their operations while reducing costs. Here’s how AI can help:
- Better inventory and warehouse management;
- Reduction of operating costs thanks to a more effective allocation of resources;
- Reduction or elimination of excess inventory;
- Data-driven business strategies, including smarter logistics and manufacturing.
And these are just a few examples. Using AI, e-commerce businesses can transform the way they operate, becoming more efficient, user-centric, and sustainable.
Deep customer analysis and customer experience improvement
If you are not yet using ML for customer segmentation and analytics, now is the best time to start. As mentioned earlier, shoppers love personalization, but you can’t provide it if you don’t know your customers inside out. Such in-depth knowledge can be gained by collecting and analyzing the most diverse user data, and that’s where ML comes in.
Modern marketing tools, powered by Machine Learning technology, offer impeccable capabilities for user analysis and creation of intelligent and relevant campaigns. This, in turn, leads to improved customer experience and increased revenue.
Intelligent Assistants
Another trend in online retail is AI and involves the use of intelligent assistants on a website. It can be a good old chatbot or a more complex personal assistant, but the concept remains the same. A virtual assistant is basically a robot that can perform certain tasks and help users along their shopping journey. Here are some examples of what an intelligent e-commerce bot can do:
- Answer the questions: the level of their complexity can be determined in advance by you;
- Provide information about your store, products, terms of service, etc.;
- Perform routine tasks such as sending emails, calling customers, or sending them notifications;
- Manage customer requests and complaints, thus speeding up the process and making the work of employees easier;
- Provide 24/7 customer support.
- Provide recommendations based on the user’s purchase history.
By implementing an intelligent virtual assistant on your website, you can significantly increase user engagement, conversions, and revenue, as well as optimize certain processes. If you don’t know where to start, you can look for ready-made solutions available or request a custom solution from an AI development company.
