No doubt you've heard many times by now that the future of eCommerce is bright and ripe with opportunities.
If you haven't already realised, that future is already upon us. If the current growth patterns and performance is any indication, the momentum has already begun.
Having said that, it is always a good idea to keep an eye on the future trends in ecommerce, so that you can prepare your online store to meet the challenges and opportunities that come with it. You know your competitors are already doing so.
So without further ado, let's look at the various ways you can compete fearlessly in the booming ecommerce industry, and gain insights into what the future holds for your online store.
Competing Factors for The Future of eCommerce
As the eCommerce industry continues to expand, more players enter the arena and compete with the existing ones. Of course, having an aesthetically pleasing website and a strong SEO is just a starting point.
In order to stay ahead in the ecommerce competition, it is important that you distinctly work on aspects that would set you apart from the rest.
Here are some that you should especially consider for your online business.
Flexibility and Agility
eCommerce businesses are so successful because of their flexibility and ability to provide an enhanced shopping experience to customers.
Even more so, eCommerce stores today need to be proactive about offering agile shopping experiences that eliminate the barriers between the physical and online worlds seamlessly.
Ensuring flexibility and agility in your online store can speed up your growth and performance in new markets.
To ensure better agility you must create content dynamically, as well as integrate new technologies and related tools to upgrade the customer experience.
Also read: 7 Best Ecommerce User Experience Tips to Maximize Conversions
Constant Improvement
One of the major mistakes that eCommerce stores commit, is that they only focus on improvements and scalability at the early stages.
Of course, improvements are a lot more important and pertinent when online stores are still in their nascent stages, but this commitment has to be sustained even after the store gets some success.
Having the same design forever for your online store, without any changes is not even an option if you are planning to compete with major retailers in the eCommerce industry.
On the contrary, you must strive to add new elements and features to your website, so that the shopping experience can be enhanced.
Moreover, the expectations and requirements of shoppers also evolve, and online stores should work hard to align their strategies with them.
Service Quality
They say service quality is the factor that will help businesses meet or exceed their customers’ expectations while ensuring economic performance.
Service quality can increase profitability and increase loyalty among existing customers. For eCommerce leaders, this has always been an important area to compete in.
Starting from providing customer support 24x7x365, the future of ecommerce suggests that businesses would need to service their customers on multiple channels.
Companies are now experimenting with real-time support across platforms, and even shopping assistance, which is only going to enrich future commerce.
Turnaround Times
Then comes the most basic need and expectation of customers from ecommerce stores — fast deliveries.
Businesses that want to thrive in retail ecommerce need to be prepared to offer lightning-fast deliveries or at least minimal turnaround time.
Customers today expect nothing less than same-day delivery or next day delivery options while checking out. What’s more, the lack of such options can even demotivate customers leading to higher cart abandonment rates.
In short, your customers have spoken — the faster you deliver, the more likely they are to shop from your store.
Along with these points, we have to dig deeper into the wide world of the ‘World Wide Web’ and found 13 statistics that narrate groundbreaking predictions of eCommerce.
Check out this infographic below:
Based on these predictions, establishing processes to cope with the future is necessary. Therefore, let’s look into how to prepare for the future of eCommerce.
Future-Proofing Your eCommerce Store
By working and improving on the aforementioned aspects, you would essentially be ensuring that your store is prepared to tackle any challenges that come with the future of online shopping.
Moreover, when you are thinking about future-proofing your online store, you must stay abreast of the technological and online purchasing trends.
Here are a few tips that can ensure that you have future-proofed your online business to stay competitive in the ecommerce industry going forward.
Technological Adoption
eCommerce stores today, need to be unafraid of experimenting with and adopting new technologies.
Some of the fastest growing online retailers have already upgraded their shopping experience using technologies such as blockchain, virtual reality and augmented reality.
It is time for every online store to take technological leaps because, well, being tech-savvy is the way forward. Higher technological adoption can also help you achieve better technological capabilities and offer you the ability to optimise your operations.
Omnichannel Presence
As discussed before, the best way to please and satisfy your customers is to be where they are.
An omnichannel presence used to be ideal a few years ago, but today, it is a necessity. Selling products just on one website is not only impractical, but it will also make you lose out on potential profits.
Think about it — if you could sell your products in 5 stores instead of just your own, why would you still choose to do the latter.
For growing online businesses that want to leverage as many ecommerce opportunities as they can, going omnichannel in terms of selling as well as servicing is crucial.
Third-Party Logistics (3PL)
Talking about scaling up and growth of ecommerce businesses can just not happen without a stable shipping partner on their side.
Also read: What is 3PL? Third-Party Logistics Definitions, Processes & Resources
For small ecommerce businesses that want to tap into the rapid growth of the industry, having a third-party logistics partner can solve many challenges.
Such companies generally take care of everything from inventory, to delivery and return processing, eliminating the need for budding online retailers to set up a large workforce right away.
The best part is, third party logistics partners can generally meet the growing needs of an online store as they scale up, making it a future-proof option for your ecommerce business.
Equipped with these tips, and a deeper insight into the future of ecommerce, we are sure that you are set to achieve great things for your online store in the near future.
We are excited to be a part of your journey and help you with top quality shipping services specially tailored to the needs of your growing online business.
If you are wondering how — we would love to hear from you.