Latest eCommerce Trends to Drive Revenue in 2023

Are you selling online? Keep up-to-date with the latest eCommerce trends that are driving revenue for online businesses right now and into 2023.

Image Source: Vecteezy

 

Global eCommerce is booming every single year with an expected growth of $1.6 trillion in the next 5 years. By 2027, it is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10%, making it one of the sought-after business opportunities for online stores. 

So, what are the Latest eCommerce Trends driving all this growth?

We’re going to take a look at that in this post, because Ecommerce has huge potential for your business. According to Statistics, the total eCommerce sales will increase up to 735 billion dollars in 2027.

n this article today, we will discuss the latest ecommerce trends that will help you drive revenue in 2023. 

Mobile Shopping

More than half of the internet users in the world use mobile for shopping. The first and foremost thing is to make a mobile-friendly eCommerce website that caters to half of the world’s internet users. Design and optimize your eCommerce store for mobile to target major users. 

 

Below are some interesting statistics about mobile eCommerce. 

• According to Statista, 58.99% of all web traffic comes from mobile as of 2Q of 2022. 
• 27% of the world’s population shop on mobile. 
• 40% of online shoppers choose to go to a competitor’s website after having a bad mobile shopping experience. 
• 81% of shoppers go to Facebook and Instagram. 

 

Given these statistics, it’s important to develop a well-rounded marketing campaign in order to, 

• Optimize your website for mobile
• Run Google ad campaigns that target mobile users
• Improve site speed for mobile 

Source 

 

Social Commerce

The process of selling your products directly through social media platforms is called social commerce. It includes promoting and selling via Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc. 

 

Social media platforms have brought a whole new shopping experience for people today including shoppable Instagram reels, TikTok, and Facebook marketplace. 

 

You might see a post with a call to action, “Shop Now” from where you can add it to your shopping cart, and purchase it right from the app. 

 

Below are the top reasons why social commerce is one of the Latest eCommerce Trends not to miss, 

• Social commerce is more interactive commerce and gives shoppers a chance to make shopping a social experience. For example, a customer can tag their friends and family on his recent purchase, or he/she can post or share a story with their pic of the recent purchase and tag the brand. 
• It also makes the shopping experience a little more frictionless. It means you don’t have to go into unnecessary details, see it, click it, and buy it! And, it’s DONE. Customers can shop for whatever they like in a matter of seconds. 
• Social commerce allows you to target your customers very easily. You can choose a platform that’s used by a targeted audience and start marketing your product there. For example, if you have a younger audience you can market your product on Snapchat or Instagram. 
• It’s easier for your customers to reach out to you thus making a brand more accessible to make the shopping experience very memorable. 

Source 

The future prospects

This infographic by Sprout Social shows the huge potential of social eCommerce in the next three years. 

An Omnichannel Shopping Experience in 2023

Tech-savvy and smart consumers today look for highly personalized, and consistent content across various channels for varying shopping experiences. 

 

Customers are more powerful today. Therefore, it’s important to create a cohesive and integrated shopping experience. Brands can use several channels like,

• Social media 
• Website 
• Ecommerce stores including Amazon/Shopify
• Email 
• Sms

Each of these avenues provides a different shopping experience. These customer touchpoints provide freedom to the target audience. 

• 73% of shoppers love to explore more than one channel during online shopping 
• eCommerce stores with an omnichannel marketing strategy have a customer retention rate of 89%
• Customer engagement rates for 2-3 channels vs one channel remain at 18.96% vs 5.4%

 

As a result, businesses and brands need to create an ecommerce ecosystem to deliver the right message, & right product to the right audience for a seamless customer experience. 

 

Here’s what happens;

• As soon as a customer sees your product on Instagram, he runs through the timeline to see more products
• He studies the customer reviews that you have put in your highlight section (or watch a product demo video)
• He then explores the reviews and then checks back your brand on Facebook, Pinterest, and Snapchat 
• He quickly lands on your eCommerce store
• After back-and-forth research, he finally adds the product to the cart and then checks it out.

How do omnichannel marketing benefits?

• It drives sales 
• It engages your customer better 
• It enables the audience to give a cross-channel shopping experience 
• It increases customer retention
• You can improve the lifetime value of your customers 
• Omnichannel marketing boosts brand awareness

Competitive Advantage

Brands that provide a competitive advantage always win. In order to stay ahead of the fierce competition today, know what makes you different from all your market rivals. The earlier you identify your strength, the easier it would be for you to scale your business.

 

Bottomline: know your strength, first! 

 

Run analytics to identify the processes. Analyze and work on KPIs to understand what processes can be optimized to get a competitive advantage. You can study analytics like,

• Conversion rates
• Average transaction value
• Cart abandonment rates 
• Overall traffic 

 

You will have positive results for each of the above, only when you provide a great UX. For that, you have to laser focus to define your target audience and focus on providing a great user experience. The other strategy that could help you get a great competitive advantage is to invest in SEO. This will help you target your specific customers and achieve the best results. 

Flexible Returns and Budget-Friendly Options

Stand by the values of your ecommerce by introducing flexible returns, and budget-friendly payment options that enable a great customer service

 

According to the data statistics by the National Retail Federation, in 2020 customers turned products work $428 billion. And, the total cost associated with the returns boosted up to $101 billion. Almost 5-10% of the customers buy products with the intention to return back, making the most of the return policies. 

 

Although returns happen across all platforms, it’s too frequent with automotive retailers where customers return almost 1 of the 5 purchases. 

 

And, here’s another trend that’s been noticed 

• Customers buying things with credit cards made returns more frequently 
• Customers making a purchase with a debit card were noticed to return less 

 

Return rates of Businesses 

• The return rate of online retail businesses = 20%
• Return rate of brick & mortar store = 9%

What are the reasons for the return 

Around 72 percent of all the returns fall under the following categories.

• Size 
• Fit 
• Style 
• Defective
• Mind changed 

How to handle customer returns?

• Send them to the warehouse. From the fulfillment center, the inspection team can look into the item and decide if it can be resold. 
• Send them to the store. In case your business has a physical store, encourage your customers to visit the store to return the item. Your sales team can be inspected on the spot and placed for future customers. Visiting your physical store gives the customers improved brand awareness and brand loyalty.
• Outsource the return management. Managing return is a rigorous process. You can hire a third party that can manage and handle your returns. In some cases, you can hire partners to handle the fulfillment process. 

 

Sustainability & Green Commerce

Today’s conscious customers are well aware of environmental hazards. Generation Z is the potential e-commerce powerhouse with a total number of 2.47 billion people. While these shoppers want to buy more, they are also concerned about their environmental effects of them. 

 

Brands that are aware of sustainability are more trustworthy. People are focusing on businesses with the following, 

• Rental
• Recycling
• Repair services

 

Generation Z focuses on sustainability by recycling items back into the market for others to enjoy. That’s the reason today’s re-commerce and rental commerce are gaining traction among shoppers. Brands should focus on re-commerce and rental commerce in order to target and engage generation Z in a better way.

 

Big brands, such as FedEx, Walmart, and Amazon, are switching to electric vehicles, drones, and cargo bikes to avoid fossil-fueled cars. Fast-fashion brands, such as Zara, implemented a demand planning approach to fight waste. Ikea pledged to become fully circular by 2030. McDonald’s and Starbucks joined the trend. 

Source: Coworking Smarts blog

Promote cross-selling and upselling

Promoting cross-selling and upselling gives you an extraordinary opportunity to improve your sales and scale your revenue. The fact that a customer always needs to have a complementary thing to the main purchase makes cross-selling in eCommerce. Take time to understand your buyer’s behavior, needs, and wants. Identify what your current customers want to buy, and what they are expected to buy. 

 

• You can start offering them complementary items to the core product
• Make sure you do the A/B testing through your email campaigns, website navigations, etc. 

Cross-selling

Cross-selling allows you to sell complementary products to the main product. For example, if you are selling shoes, then you can offer socks. And, if you are selling a cycle helmet, you can offer any other cycling gear, just like the following store has done. You can sell any products in the cycling niche as complementary items. 

Source: amazon

 

Upsell

It allows you to sell a superior version of the current product. As your customer approaches you to buy a certain product, offer them the best-selling version on your store or website. Just don’t force him or her, but put it as a reminder to him/her 

Social Media Marketing

We talked about social commerce earlier in this article. It’s important to realize that in order to make the most of social commerce you have to focus on social media marketing first. It’s no surprise that social media ecommerce has been popular over the past years. With so much of clickable shopping experiences, social media advertising has taken the storm into ecommerce. You just click on a social media post and you will land into the 

 

Marketers have been benefiting from social media marketing to scale their sales and increase their revenues. Social media advertising can benefit brands in a way that they can interact directly with the customers. Both organic and paid campaigns can help you, 

• Improve the brand awareness of your eCommerce store 
• Allows you to interact with your customers 1-1, and therefore you can monitor the sentiments, complaints, and feedback more easily
• You can have a better understanding of your competitors and your target audience. 
• You can target your audience through paid social media tools. 

 

How to use social media for improving revenue

Follow these tips to improve revenue for your eCommerce store 

• Highlight customer reviews, and feedback on your social media platforms
• Highlight product reviews through your stories
• Promote user generated content (UGC) 
• Incorporate chatbots to improve the UX
• Promote and practice social listening 
• Post content consistently, and promote user-generated content for better results 
• Build, manage and promote your products on the social media marketplace 

 

It is important to keep in mind the processing speed of the leads you receive on Facebook, TikTok or other social networks. Use online connectors to automate workflows and transfer data. This will allow you to quickly receive order information and sync it in the tools you use to manage sales and marketing.

Incorporate Augmented Reality into Ecommerce

New consumers enter marketplaces with smart decisions. Integrating AR into your ecommerce can help shoppers to visualize their purchases. It enables them to view any product or service from the comfort of their home without actually visiting the store.

How AR improves ecommerce experience 

• It enhances the overall shopping experience. It is particularly great in beauty products where people can try out different products with varying colors, shapes, and sizes to identify which one works for them the best. 
• AR allows consumers to personalize their online shopping. As a result, it improves the overall conversion rates while improving the sales of your ecommerce store. 

Conclusion 

The Latest eCommerce Trends listed above for 2023 will help you boost your sales and drive revenue for your eCommerce store. Which of the above trends you’ve already incorporated into your eCommerce store? Do you think we have missed any eCommerce trends? Let us know so that we can add them to our list.