Top 5 e-Commerce Trends for 2017

With a boom of loyalty programs and contextual shopping in the e-commerce industry in 2016, most e-tailers delivered personalized and consistent experience to their customers. As we head into 2017, we have gathered some skilled views and speculations that might change the e-commerce game in the upcoming year. Let’s take a look at those 5 key trends that might shape the e-commerce sector in 2017:

Programmatic Advertising

According to a forecast report outlined by media agency Zenith, Programmatic Advertising is expected to grow by 31% in the coming year. This trend leverages deeper datasets before determining the kind of ad that is to be shown to the target audience. It will help attract the right audience at the right time with the right type of ad. Also, it is better than basic retargeting and lets e-commerce store owners reach out to a more relevant audience.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Algorithms

Artificial intelligence algorithm overcomes the challenges like customer segmentation and pattern identification based on browsing history that further helps retailers with automation and store personalization. As more customers engage with the concept of AI in 2017, the use of chatbots (fully automated chat agents) will become more popular in the e-commerce sector. According to absolunet, the use of chatbots impacts the buyer conversion rate by 5 to 10 times in a chat session. One of the famous fast food chains, Taco Bell is using a chatbot named, Tacobot, that helps customers in placing orders, followed by many well-known brands like H&M, Sephora who have recently introduced chatbots.

Mobile Commerce

According to research by Gartner, U.S customers’ behavior will drive m-commerce revenue up to 50 percent of total U.S. digital commerce revenue by 2017. Due to the hike in mobile transactions every year, online retailers will be more focused on delivering a seamless mobile experience to their customers. Since people are more exposed to mobile devices than computers, online vendors will ensure that their website functions the same on mobile as it functions on a PC. If e-commerce managers still use standalone applications for their online store or a separate mobile site with limited product range in comparison to the web version, they will probably restrict their sales.

Additional Payment Options

With the availability of different payment options, customers are more likely to purchase from an online store thus, resulting in further conversions and sales. This attracts more customers and makes it easy for them to shop from that particular website. Being the dominant payment players, credit cards, and internet banking are highly used by most of the customers. Therefore, it will become a necessity for retailers to integrate alternate payment options like MasterPass by MasterCard, V.me by Visa, ApplePay, and PayPal inside their online store.

Same Day Delivery

Consumers will shop from an online store that offers same-day delivery. According to a report by Forrester, around 29% of customers would prefer same day delivery of products in 2016 and beyond. Bol.com is already offering this service to its customers; Amazon has already made its first drone delivery via Prime Air service. If store owners miss out on this trend, they will lose their customers as they might go elsewhere.

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