2023 E-Commerce Trends

Table of Contents

It’s no secret e-commerce has made (or broken) many businesses in recent years, with more and more consumers looking to online websites and storefronts to fulfill shopping needs. The digital world is now flooded with options in nearly every retail market, so staying abreast of e-commerce trends is crucial for any business hoping to excel in any industry.

We’ve compiled a list of e-commerce trends in 2023 to help you and your business leverage your online presence for profit.

Increased Reliance on Online and Mobile

In a study conducted by eMarketer, worldwide retail e-commerce sales reached about $2.3 trillion in 2017, reflecting a 24.8% increase from the previous year. Mobile sales made up $1.4 trillion of this total, equalling 58.9% of these digital sales, an increase of 18.7% from 2015. As consumers are relying more heavily on the digital world in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect these figures to continue increasing each year.

The convenient, comfortable and contactless nature of online shopping—whether on a desktop, tablet or mobile device—is here to stay. Online shopping is now easier, friendlier and more accessible than ever. As technologies and algorithms continue to evolve, we expect to see continued growth of most businesses via e-commerce. If your business isn’t yet online or your online presence leaves something to be desired, optimizing your business to meet the demands of today’s shoppers on multiple platforms is key to staying on top of a rapidly evolving market.

Voice Search

Smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, plus mobile services such as Siri and Cortana, are now used more and more to complete tasks. Data collected by Think with Google shows that a whopping 72% of smart speaker owners report they use their speakers every single day. These speakers can be used to create shopping lists, order items and food, complete other home organization tasks and conduct web searches. Businesses should optimize keywords and content as it relates to voice searches made through these devices. If the customer literally asks, help yourself be the first to respond.

Ways To Pay

Consumers rely increasingly on secure digital payment services such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Square. Instead of providing credit card information to each individual site they order from, customers have come to trust these more convenient, faster, secure checkout methods. Allowing flexibility with payment options at checkout is a great way to protect against canceled sales and increase conversion rates. Customers look for a quick, secure and convenient checkout experience. The more ways to pay, the more value to your business.

Younger Generations

The Millennial Shopping Habits: Trend Report found 80% of consumers aged 25 to 40 report shopping primarily online. Optimizing online sites to the priorities and interests of younger shoppers can help boost sales potential and conversion rates. One easy way to test your site’s appeal is to conduct research around which demographics your site’s design and utility appeal to. Where does your marketing reach? Can you tweak your site design, user experience or take a new path when it comes to social media marketing?

Social Media

Product marketing and shoppable ads have seamlessly integrated into nearly all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. Around 68% of users report making purchases through a social media platform and almost all intend to make such a purchase within the next year. Building a social media presence for your business and effectively marketing your products on these sites will help you reach these consumers and increase your potential sales. If you’re already on social media, is what you’re doing working? If not, it might be time to try something else.

Environmental Concerns, Sustainability and Business Values

People around the globe have become more environmentally conscious than ever before. An increased willingness to support companies prioritizing sustainable practices means a consumer base ready to endorse and uphold positive business values. Carbon neutrality, fair trade, sustainable and local sourcing, positive company culture and other pro-environment, pro-social responsibility movements have all gained steam. Companies practicing thoughtful environmental stewardship are seeing increased interest and business when compared to their competition.

A study performed by First Insight found consumers of all ages are expecting companies to uphold more sustainable practices. Transitioning your company to a greener business model and aligning the values of the company with today’s consumers will increase sales potential and help you form a loyal customer base. One way to show you’re holding your company accountable is to apply for B-Corp status and pursue other certifications relevant to your industry such as organic certification, free trade certification and more.

Visual Commerce and Video

As the world of e-commerce evolves, the importance of providing engaging product representation only grows. Static photos of products aren’t enough anymore. Before committing to a purchase, consumers increasingly seem to want to explore a product in-depth. Providing videos, reviews and interactive content about a product can make it more marketable in the online world.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Online shopping has always limited the customer’s ability to evaluate and interact with a product prior to purchase. Picture and video representation have become crucial, especially when initially grabbing a customer’s attention, but they don’t substitute well enough to replace interacting with many products firsthand.

Augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR, respectively) can provide a previously impossible level of engagement with the online consumer. The multitude of applications for AR and VR in the world of e-commerce provides an opportunity for creative, tech-savvy businesses to use this revolutionary technology to bring the in-person shopping experience to customers at home.

Personalization

Do you like thinking about yourself as a statistic? Your customers probably don’t. Individualized needs and experience mean your company must deliver a personalized experience.

Data is collected about everything we do online and it can be utilized to help create a more personalized shopping experience for the customer if done well. Utilizing data collected by AI to tailor your business’s e-commerce experience to each individual customer can help you create a more streamlined browsing experience and increase revenue.

Virtual Assistants

Chatbots have become the online equivalent of an in-person customer service representative. There to guide customers in product searches, assist with frequently asked questions, direct customers to the correct page and mitigate potential frustrations, virtual assistance can complement a customer service department while reducing overhead.

Growth of Subscriptions

While moving some services to a subscription model has aggravated many customers and cost some businesses support, subscriptions can keep customers coming back for more when used wisely. Convenient, hassle-free options for frequently accessed content and products can be a worthwhile investment for many consumers. The subscription market has only continued to grow, and some models suggest subscription-based revenues reached $120 billion in 2022.

Choosing the Best E-Commerce Platform

If you’re starting an online business or transitioning your business online, choosing the best e-commerce platform to fit your needs will be critical to the success of your company. As many experienced e-commerce vendors know, too many options to choose from can be difficult when evaluating software, so our guide can help you decide based on pricing, ease of use, features and functionality, inventory management and multichannel selling.

FORBES