The e-commerce business isn’t static. It experiences constant change with each new development, these changes resulting from needs for our everyday living and those impacted upon by new technological updates and features. As this change happens, brewing intense but healthy competition, online merchants are improving and bettering their products and services to meet the status quo. E-retail isn’t exactly what it was 2 years back; there have been new welcomed developments to meet present demands. While it might seem that practically everything about online shopping is changing, it’s important to note that these changes are only in select categories, and here are some of them. 1. Voice Search: Yes, you heard that right. Online shopping is improving to accommodate features that allow users to search for products by calling out to them. It’s an interesting new development as many people are excited to try it out and many online stores and e-commerce businesses are opting for ways to imbibe this voice search feature into the business. 2. The Algorithm Effect: Technology stays impacting e-commerce hugely. And, one of the ways it stays doing this is through the use of algorithms. Algorithms can recommend products to customers. It studies shoppers’ behavior and with machine learning, can easily recommend products to buyers the next time they’re on the site. 3. Use of Chatbots: Chatbots are becoming rampant on every online shopping site today. The chatbot feature is becoming of great help to both buyers and sellers. For sellers, this is an automated and easy way they can get feedback and reach out with information to their buyers and for buyers, this improves their customer experience as with the chatbot, many of their questions and complaints are taken into consideration. 4. Mobile Shopping: Mobile shopping is currently on the go. Almost every online retailer’s goal is to have an in-app shopping feature available for customers as searching through websites can be a bit tedious at times. With Mobile shopping, customers can easily access the web store, make purchases from anywhere in the world, easy payment process, and include tracking features for the products. A 2019 statistic notes that by the end of 2021, over 73% of e-commerce stores will have incorporated mobile shopping into their business. 5. Diversified Payment Options: There are practically a lot of ways to initiate payment on online shopping stores today. This on another hand is a reaction to the insecurity prevalent in online shopping. Many online retailers have now added other payment options that are secured for easier transactions between them and their customers. There is a wide variety of ways to make payment online today without using a debit card. There’s either the secured credit card option on online payment options like PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Payoneer, Paystack, etc. An important thing to note about all these recent trends in the online shopping sector is tailored to one effect: to make services as convenient as possible for buyers. |