The eCommerce industry is probably one of the fastest moving. As eCommerce is based on user behaviour, it can be quite sporadic in changing trends.
As a merchant, if you fail to keep up and change, you can quite easily be left behind.
With the pandemic slowing down somewhat in many parts of the world, the need for buying online has staggered a little. The days of buying a new book, arts and crafts sets and other lockdown hobbies have gone.
2022 will be no different to any other year, trends change all the time and the way technology has evolved is guiding merchants to get smarter about how they run their business.
Here are 7 eCommerce trends for 2022:
Voice assistants and eCommerce
Voice assistants have been around for some time now. Our elders are pretty much used to them now, screaming “Alexa, add bin bags to shopping list” from the kitchen is a common occurrence in many homes today.
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular, due to the ease of use and how many devices now enable voice search.
Something you need to keep in mind is keeping your site optimised for voice search. If you have a location, make sure your physical address and contact numbers are easy to parse.
Voice search is going to bring a higher level of importance to building your brand. People won’t tend to order via voice by saying “Alexa, order a cheeseburger”. The first thing that would come to mind would be “Alexa, order me a BigMac”. People will tend to order from brands they know, so, keep building deep relationships with your customers.
App/Tech Efficiency
We’ve all been on an app purge before. When your store speed is getting a little sluggish. It’s one of the easiest ways to reduce load time and create a better experience for your customers.
BUT, we still need apps. Shopify apps add a new layer of personalisation and experience for your visitors. Over time, your App library can build up, in some cases, an app could’ve been installed in the spur of the moment to solve a really small issue.
As brands move into 2022, there’s going to be real importance on cutting/saving. The pandemic left us with quite a lot of downtime, extra capital to spend and an increase in cash flow for many brands.
During those uncertain times, brands were focused on trying to push more sales. Now 2022 is almost here and things have quietened down a lot more, merchants will probably find themselves combing their finances, going through their stores seeing what to cut and seeing what’s performing in their tech stacks.
Social Commerce
A new term keeps getting thrown around which is social commerce. Despite how you feel, it’s here to stay, and the growth of social platforms is only going to cast more importance on social commerce.
The latest app taking everyone by storm is TikTok. Very new, very quick, and VERY effective in terms of organic marketing and social commerce.
A social network's money comes from the end-user, their key metric is time spent on the app. The more time you spend, the more money they make along with merchants taking advantage of social commerce. More social media platforms are now adding this as a key focus, helping end-users shop within their apps, without having to leave and visit another website.
TIP: Make sure your store is fully optimised for mobile. Your shopping experience should be effortless. Also, pay key attention to any app integrations that you can take advantage of to make life easier for you and your potential customers. Integrate Shopify Store with Instagram
AI Upselling and Cross-Selling
The increased research into AI and machine learning has made our lives easier in so many ways. It’s quite hard for merchants to have a variety of different products and then offer upsells and cross-sells for each product.
AI is perfect for the job. Most merchants will have quite a lot of data they’ll need for really good AI, although there are definitely quite a lot that won’t. Some CRM systems offer machine learning features that can definitely help cross-selling and upselling.
AR eCommerce Shopping
Web 3.0 is on the horizon! Okay, we’re not going to go too deep into Web 3.0 conversation, because we’ll be here all day explaining why a picture of a monkey sold for millions.
AR has been around for some time now. Many brands have been able to adopt it earlier than others due to their industry, such as furniture, sunglasses and more.
Throughout 2022, as both consumers and merchants become more familiar with the technology, we will definitely see more utilisation from brands.
READ: Shopify Augmented Reality: Everything You Need To Know
Interactive Commerce
Much like the previous point, interactive content is going to be a leader in the way consumers buy.
BUT, augmented reality just isn’t a fit for many brands, and that’s okay because you can get really creative in a really simple way.
Using visual content in your store will help increase conversions and create a truly unique experience for your customers. A great way of doing this is switching from a JPG or PNG image format and going to WebP, this help increase quality and reduces loading speed.
Gifs on your product pages are another great way of showing off your products, any intricacies or unique selling points that help solve a problem for your customers.
READ: How To Write A Product Page That Converts
Sustainability Focus
Sustainability should be the number 1 focus for all eCommerce brands. Consumers, governments and brands have been making great progress in becoming more sustainable.
2022 will likely bring a bigger focus as more governments around the world increase efforts to create more sustainable environmental practices.
Shoppers want brands to show their commitments to sustainable eCommerce, this means changing things at every stage of your business, not just packaging with a fancy badge.
Adding donations to your store at the checkout stage is a great way to show how your brand is making an impact whilst connecting with your customers too
Get ready for the future of eCommerce
As you can tell by the blog, the eCommerce landscape is constantly changing. Get ready for the future of eCommerce by working with us.
