Trends that will forever change the e-commerce

You know that in America as many as 95% of society has a mobile phone? What’s more, they are the most popular devices for shopping online. Such data has been made available by the Pew Research Center research center.

Most commercial transactions take place during the holiday season. In 2018, record sales were recorded using mobile devices. It also turns out that as many as one in five Americans use the Internet only via a smartphone, without having a home broadband connection at all.

Similar trends can be observed in Poland. That is why it is worth taking a closer look at the revolution in online trading, which will happen soon. Meet 6 leading trends in e-commerce.

1. Progressive Web Apps – PWA

What exactly does PWA offer? These are progressive mobile applications that make the website look the same on a desktop device and on a mobile device. Thanks to this, there is no need to create a new application only for smartphones or tablets. With PWA, the page loads faster, allowing it to be viewed quickly by the user. This happens even when you do not have access to the network. As a result, customers will make transactions faster, which means fewer abandoned baskets, higher conversion rate and higher profit for the store owner.

PWA was once reserved for large and prosperous brands. Today, every retailer is more and more often at the fingertips.

2. Shopping in Augmented Reality

The Augmented Reality (AR) allows the user to visualize the product they are interested in. Thanks to this, just before buying it, he can see how the product looks “in fact”. It breaks the barrier of physical contact with the selected object, and also gives you the opportunity to see its features – color, size, texture, etc. This type of technology allows the customer to make the right decision and reduces the risk of dissatisfaction, complaints and returns of purchased goods.

Mobile devices are increasingly adapted to support AR functions. Proof of this are gaming applications, eg Pokémon Go, popular some time ago. An example of using AR in e-commerce is Sephora. Its Virtual Arts mobile app allows customers to check lipstick colors and even scan faces to choose the right foundation color.

Also, companies offering clothing are interested in AR, creating the possibility of trying clothes in a virtual wardrobe and even offering 3D body scans at home (ZOZO company).

3. Payment on one click

One-Click Payments, or one-click payment, consists in storing customer credit card data, which allows an express purchase to be made with the help of a single button. As a result, customers less often leave their baskets and decide to make a purchase faster. This solution has already been applied by Amazon in 2017. This enabled her to significantly increase profits.

Both mobile operating systems and browsers on desktop computers can store credit card information in the customer’s digital portfolio. This saves time for manually entering data, as well as exposing yourself to the risk of entering them in public places. All information is properly secured and provided with authentication means, such as face identification. Therefore, it is anticipated that other means of payment may in the future give way to just such methods guaranteeing full security.

4. Voice interface, i.e. shopping experience without using the screen

Mobile products are starting to offer more and more. One of the new features is voice activation, i.e. the ability to use a voice assistant, without the need to enter commands. The possibility of talking appears when you say a specific password, without having to look at the screen and start a special application. The voice assistant calls the API interface in the same way an application would do to allow the user to do something.

In the future, it is possible to use such technology in many different places, including in the field of e-commerce while shopping.

5. Universal mobile payments

Universal mobile payments is a method of contactless payments, which consists in scanning the corresponding QR codes, without having to log in to the banking applications. They are eagerly used by the people of China. Payment is available there as a WeChat Pay function.

In Western countries the solution is not yet popularized. However, as predicted by specialists, this type of method will certainly spread to the rest of the world. Just like it happened with another Chinese application – TikTok, which in Poland has already gained a lot of fans.

6. Contextual Commerce

Ecommerce vendors strive to remove all obstacles on the way of purchasing for their clients. They pay great attention to eliminate delays in making transactions, increasing the speed of their websites and applications, and adding new shopping opportunities.

A good example is contextual commerce. It is based on the fact that eg by WhatsApp you send your friend a photo of selected shoes. If he likes it, he does not have to search for a store and a specific subpage where he can buy it.

He will do it thanks to the button, which appears together with the photo. This saves his time and prevents him from reaching the competition store. This solution allows an e-commerce salesman to trade anywhere on the Internet, and his conversion rate will soar up.

An example of a site operating on the basis of an early contextual trading platform is Skyscanner. Within it there is one platform that handles transactions, safely connecting many airlines and their partners. And all this is done without users leaving the site.

This is certainly the technology of the future, which will make it easier for customers to make purchases and sellers to acquire customers. We know that we like in various messengers, share products with friends, which we are interested in buying.

Why are the biggest changes taking place in mobile transactions? Because these devices are our future. The largest group of specialists and innovators is working on creating such types of solutions. So if you care about the success of your e-commerce business, you should pay attention to mobile devices.