4 Reasons Why Ecommerce Is The Future Of The Shopping Industry

The world, no doubt started moving towards digitization over a decade ago but the recent pandemic is when the digital market peaked. Especially the retail businesses. From allowing us to buy groceries, other necessities to our favorite brands, eCommerce stores were one of the unrecognized heroes of the hour.

Because of this surge in online shopping, 80% of shoppers are rethinking the way they used to shop and they are shifting online. At this point, as a retailer you need to ask yourself one very important question; “what kind of online experience do I want to offer to my customers”.

To help you consider, here are some of the things you should consider if you are not convinced about moving your business online:

1. Better Customer Demographics

Online business helps you gather better data and cater to your customers. According to several surveys, 80% of people around the world were shopping using their phones and laptops. This trend may have started because of the pandemic but it is here to stay. So to answer the question, who is shopping online? The short answer would be everyone!

According to UPS 2020, 40% of shoppers who research stuff online end up making a purchase. Collecting customer’s data and being able to see the demographics will help you not only increase your sales, but you also won’t have to go and sell it to the customer door to door. Imagine the costs and time you will be saving.  

2. Cost Cutting

Shifting your business either completely or partially online has not only shown cost-cutting but also showed employee satisfaction too. A lot of the businesses during the pandemic shifted online to make ends meet but even after the whole Covid-19 episode settled to some extent, the businesses never shifted back. The primary reasons were saving money and happy employees. If your employees can work from home and you as a business are making money and saving costs on top of that, what more could you ask for.

Keeping your customers satisfied online and bringing in new ones can be a challenge at first. This is particularly true for new businesses but making your website functionality and aesthetically better, being connected with your consumer through social media, and keeping the packaging a bit more memorable are some of the ways you can keep your customers hooked. 

3. Machine Learning For Experience

91% of shoppers are more likely to shop with brands that customize their interface according to the customers’ preferences but how do you do that? One word, machine learning.

Data analysts used to manually analyze customer preferences and a lot of speculation used to be involved in those methods but now luckily we have artificial intelligence. Using algorithms designed specifically by data scientists to gauge customer preferences and making recommendations according to the data is the future. Whether you email, show them ads or simply send them a text message, it is likely that the customer will make the purchase if the data is accurate. Although the tedious statistical analyses are handled by the AI, the analysts still add their insights of consumer behavior to optimize the data from the AI further.

4. It’s On Your Mobile

The best part about selling online is the era of smartphones and the constant innovation in them. Gone are the days when you had to use a dial-up internet and a DOS desktop to visit a website. Forrester predicts the sales done via mobile phones to reach a whopping 175.4$ billion dollars. 

Moreover, according to Statista, mobile users are 45% of online shoppers. Brands used to work on their desktop website but now smarter brands are shifting towards mobile-friendly websites first. This includes optimizing your website’s design for mobile phones, tablets, and other smart devices, etc. Competitive pricing, customized products, and accessibility are important when it comes to having loyal customers and attracting new ones but there is one crucial thing that entrepreneurs often overlook, website responsiveness. While designing your website in this day and age, it is vital to consider its user’s journey across multiple platforms. E.g, the updating of information in real-time, icons, pictures, etc, add to cart and other buttons are where they are supposed to be on both desktop and mobile

Final Thoughts:

To bring in more perspective, 21.5% of the world’s population is buying online according to sleeknote. This is an enormous number of 1.5 billion people. With the wealth of all the new demographic details, shopping behavior details, and exposing your business to the world can help you upscale very easily and efficiently as well. Moreover, leveraging technology for your business while the industry is in boom can put you light years ahead of people who are not convinced yet. We hope to see your business online soon. Let us know about your breakthroughs with eCommerce technology in the comments below.