E-Commerce – What the Future Augurs

The growth of e-commerce has fundamentally changed the way we shop and run our business and life. It has also resulted in the development of an entirely new industry, along with employment opportunities for many. As with everything in the modern world, it continues to develop, change, morph, and grow rapidly.

Whether you run an e-commerce business or hope to work in one, a quick review of possible future developments will equip you to prepare yourself for your desired role in the industry.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Yes, we can take an online look at the products we are interested in buying. While this may be good enough for branded products and ones we are familiar with, we need more when it comes to buying new or unfamiliar products.

How about Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)? AR and VR have been in the works for many years and are now being deployed by retailers to provide an immersive online experience to shoppers. It is not limited to products; shopping for services could be significantly impacted by AR. They promise to bridge the gap an online shopping experience currently has with an in-store one.

Buying clothes? An AR-based visual try-on experience, anyone?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) 

AI is everywhere, almost suddenly. With the rise and rise of generative AI and tools like Gemini, ChatGPT and Copilot, it has become easier than ever to create content and publish, as ecommerce companies often need to, while updating products on their shelves and catalogues. Customer support is going the bot way, with increasing success, reducing cost for providers and increasing satisfaction for customers, who don’t need to wait for a human to be available.

Hyper-personalisation with data analytics

Businesses have always tried to know more about their customers so that they can offer more suitable, personalised products and services to them. Consumer surveys and feedback mechanisms have served to collect information about their needs and requirements.

With data analytics, the effort of going personal is going hyper. Each keystroke a customer presses provides more information to the retailer. With the help of data analytics, expect content and offers that are made just for you and maybe for-the-moment only. The next minute, the offer could change. Two people sitting next to each other could get to see different aspects of the same product. The possibilities are endless.

Focus on sustainability

While a lot gets written about youngsters coming of age, and not all complimentary, it seems quite clear that younger consumers are placing greater emphasis on sustainability, and putting their money where their mouth is; by giving their custom to businesses with an eco-friendly emphasis. The impact is already visible. Amazon has gotten rid of much of the needless packing it used to ship its products inside.

Ethicality is a related subject close to the hearts of these consumers. They are likely to support brands they believe follow ethical practices while doing business, including but not limited to sustainability.

Voice-led search and commerce

Convenience is king. Making shopping convenient for customers has always been the effort. With rapid advances in technologies that can accept and process voice commands, hitherto typically classified as unstructured data, convenience in shopping is moving to a whole new level with voice-activated purchases. With millions of people already used to interacting with Siri and Alexa, this trend should not take long to catch on.

Omnichannel sales

The more the entrances of a physical store, the greater the footfall, goes an “old jungle” saying. E-commerce can be expected to follow a similar strategy by opening up more doors and windows through which a customer can peep into their store and buy.

An own e-commerce powered website, riding on aggregators such as Amazon, social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, might just be the basic channels in a world increasingly riven by traffic coming through mobile phones.

Web3 commerce

Unbeknownst to many of us, blockchain technologies that facilitate cryptocurrency and non-fungible token (NFT) transactions are gaining ground. Tesla is known to have briefly started accepting Bitcoin for transactions. Merchants are always on the lookout for payment mechanisms that make it easy for customers to transact.

This is consistent with the overall strategy of a “seamless checkout” for customers and reducing the number of abandoned carts littering their servers.

Quick commerce

We place this at the bottom of our list because, in many ways, this is no longer a future trend; it is already with us. However, this has substantial headroom for growth, as demonstrated by periodic announcements made by large retailers of their intent to step into this space.

Conclusion

While it is impossible to predict the future, our decisions are taken only for the future. Our ability to see future trends and contribute towards shaping them will determine the level of success of our enterprise and endeavours.