7 E-Commerce Trends To Watch in 2021

By 2040, more than 95% of all purchases will be conducted via ecommerce? (source: 99Firms)

It means that, if you’re planning to build your ecommerce website – or are still unsure about doing that, read further to explore the biggest ecommerce trends!

Top eCommerce App Development Companies according to DesignRush

Top Ecommerce Development Trends

1. Mobile Shopping

Mobile shopping trends show that m-commerce is the future of online shopping, with the current figures at around 51% of online shoppers conduct purchases via their smartphones (source: FinancesOnline). In addition, these figures are predicted to rise an additional 25 percent in the next 4 years.

Hence, if you want consumers to shop on their smartphones as easily as they do on their desktops, you will need a mobile website or App that has an intuitive UX design and provides a straightforward user experience, and easy payment options, like a one click checkout.

However, providing a responsive website doesn’t necessarily mean offering a cutting-edge mobile experience. Mobile conversion rates tend to be less than half of desktop. According to Google, 53% of consumers abandon a mobile site that takes longer than three seconds to load one of the main challenges with responsive sites.

2. API-driven and Headless Ecommerce

To offer an optimal mobile experience, many brands are opting for a Progressive Web Application (PWA), which can provide their clients with a native app-like experience, thanks to features like push notifications, working offline, and device hardware access, creating a user experiences similar to native applications on desktop and mobile devices. Importantly, there is no requirement for developers or users to install the web apps via digital distribution systems like Apple App Store or Google Play.

The combination of a JavaScript-based application (PWA) and Headless CMS enables companies to have a dynamic, mobile-friendly application in the web front end.  It also allows you to spend less time worrying about software maintenance and more time giving customers the shopping experiences they’re looking for. Many companies are combining the PWA with an Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) – which represents the foundation of Google’s mobile-first index – to boost SEO results and conversion rates!

The Headless Commerce Strategy allows developers to work simultaneously on the front-end and back-end systems, further improving the mobile performance and getting more control over the customer journey.

3. Digital Strategy Optimization

A big challenge for retailers in 2020 – during and after the COVID-19 crisis – is the necessity to keep up with competitors’ technology breakthroughs.In the last months, some of the best practices to increase the ecommerce’s conversion rate remain Facebook’s dynamic ads, Google’s shopping ads, and on-page SEO’s efforts:

• Around 40% of retailers are using social media platforms to generate sales (source: emarketer);
• Online retailers that have at least one active social media account make 32% more sales than online retailers that don’t use social media platforms (source: BigCommerce).

Top Social Network App Development Companies according to DesignRush

4. Augmented Reality

Perhaps the biggest ecommerce website development trend to watch is the widespread adoption of Augmented Reality (AR).

AR, in fact, has become a major game changer when it comes to 2020 online shopping, as it:

• Helps clients better visualize the products they’re interested in;
• Makes shoppers see how they’d look while wearing an item or how their room would look with a specific furniture – all before the purchase.

Many companies which have already tried AR including ecommerce brands such as Adidas and Lacoste, which have been using AR apps.

5. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Two other ecommerce website development trends are Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, which are offering retailers the opportunity to enhance personalization and improve customer service.

Those solutions give you the possibility to:

• Learn more about your customers’ habits and needs;
• Supply your clients with a personalized and custom-made experience;
• Connect customers’ data with real-time insights, improving the shopping experience;
• Automate tasks such as customer service or the generation of timely offers.

6. Voice Search-driven Shopping

People are increasingly counting on AI Voice solutions like Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa even to buy products online.

And on some level, this is still an unexplored ground, but you should be aware of it because voice technology has been expected to grow by 127% over this year (source: Salesforce): so, as shoppers look for easier purchase journeys, many retailers are trying to integrate this future-oriented experience on their ecommerce platforms.

7. Chatbots

Finally, there’s a meaningful AI’s feature that deserves a separate space: chatbots.

We’re talking about a solution that can act as a real salesperson, allowing e-stores to communicate with several customers and give them the feeling of personal attention.

Actually, at present, a growing number of shoppers like conversing with bots: more than 60% of customers, in fact, report preferring to have websites, apps, or chatbots answer their simpler inquiries due to their faster feedback (source: Kinsta).

Ecommerce Development Software: which to choose?

Taking advantage of these technologies is easier than you may think, and starts be relying on a valuable development software. Some top e-commerce solutions include:

• Drupal Commerce Module with Magento: this is a set of modules that offers Magento functionality into Drupal. On the one hand, Magento is an excellent open-source e-commerce platform well suited to work with the Drupal CMS, which provides unique features to build and manage a website. So, this combination provides you with a powerful e-commerce platform whose front-end can be easily themed and managed;
• WordPress with WooCommerce: WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce solutions out there. It is based on the WordPress platform and provides a straightforward, powerful, and feature-rich digital shopping experience;
• SAP Commerce Cloud: this platform offers a simple checkout flow and the opportunity to have all of your selling channels in the same place. For instance, by integrating physical and digital shopping experiences, SAP allows you to see stock availability across all channels in real time;
• Salesforce Commerce Cloud: last but not least, Salesforce can help you create unified and intelligent ecommerce experiences, both online and in-store. It is a highly scalable, cloud-based SaaS ecommerce solution that offers best-in-class features to provide a truly optimized ecommerce experience.

Yet, if you really want to achieve a meticulous work, you should lean on a team of expert developers who bring years of experience in software development projects.

In this regard, our ICON Worldwide team can help you develop different tailor-made solutions for your ecommerce project, since:

• We are expert PHP developers experienced with all commerce modules;
• We are certified SAP and Salesforce developers for commerce and ERP sites;
• Our Full-Service capabilities allow you to tap into resources like UX Design or Mobile App development on-demand;
• For many clients, we act also as a back-office, including 24/7 IT and customer support;
• We build for acquisition, integrating SEO and PPC objectives into design and development from the start.