Top 15 Ecommerce Trends That Are Shaping the Industry

If you're looking to stay ahead of the curve in the world of online shopping, then you need to be aware of the biggest ecommerce trends of 2024.

In this blog post, I'll walk you through some of the most important ecommerce trends for 2024 and how you can use them to increase sales and revenue for your business.

So what are we waiting for? Let’s start!

The Key Ecommerce Trends to Pay Attention to in 2024

Shopping online has come a long way in the past decade, and it shows no signs of slowing down. 

As consumers are becoming more and more comfortable shopping online, businesses need to keep up with the latest trends in order to stay competitive.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest ecommerce trends that will dominate the industry this year and learn how to make the most of them.

1. More Businesses Will Move Online

One of the most significant ecommerce trends for 2024 is that an increasing number of businesses will move their operations online. With more and more people doing their shopping online, it's no surprise that businesses are starting to take notice.

By moving your business online, you'll be able to reach a larger audience than ever before and increase sales and revenue. Not to mention, it's a lot more cost-effective than setting up a physical store.

So, if you're looking to take your business to the next level, then moving online is the way to go. And the easiest way to go online is to use a powerful ecommerce solution such as BigCommerce.

With BigCommerce, you can easily create a professional ecommerce website in minutes and start selling your products and services online. 

The platform offers a wide range of features and options that will help you grow your business, and it's backed by a team of experts who are always happy to help.

Ready to take advantage of this ecommerce platform to move your business online? Check out BigCommerce today!

Before moving on to the next ecommerce trend on this list, here are a few more tips to build an ecommerce site and start selling online.

• Pick a domain name that is easy to remember and relevant to your business.
• Make sure your website is mobile friendly so that customers can shop on the go.
• Use a secure payment gateway to accept payments from customers.
• Optimize your page titles, meta descriptions, product descriptions, and other website content for relevant keywords. Also, optimize your ecommerce site for other SEO factors such as page speed, user experience, link profile, and more.
• Promote your ecommerce store on social media and other online platforms.
• Offer customer support so that shoppers can easily get in touch with you if they have any questions or problems.

Now let's move on to the next ecommerce trend.

2. Voice Shopping Will Take Off

Another ecommerce trend that will take off in 2024 is voice shopping. 

With the advent of smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, more and more people are starting to use voice commands to shop for products.

And it's not hard to see why.

Voice shopping is a lot faster and easier than browsing through a website or using a search engine. Plus, with the help of smart speakers, you can easily order products from anywhere in your home.

Popular ecommerce brands like Amazon and Walmart have big voice shopping ambitions. You can easily shop with Alexa to order millions of Amazon products, reorder the products you use most, and get access to Alexa-exclusive deals.

If you're looking to attract more online shoppers, you need to start taking advantage of voice shopping. And here are a few tips that can help you optimize your ecommerce store for voice shopping:

• Make sure your products are easy to find and order. Use clear and concise product titles and descriptions, and make sure that your checkout process is quick and easy.
• Use voice shopping-specific keywords in your product titles and descriptions. This will help shoppers find your products when they're using voice commands.
• Promote your ecommerce store on social media. This will help you reach a larger audience and increase awareness of your store.

3. Increased Emphasis on Customer Experience

In the world of ecommerce, customer experience is becoming increasingly important. 

In fact, 85% of consumers are willing to pay for greater convenience and a friendly, welcoming experience. And 65% of consumers in the United States find a positive experience with a brand more influential than great advertising.

If you're looking to increase sales and revenue, then you need to focus on improving your customer experience. And here are a few tips that can help.

• Use a clean and responsive ecommerce theme that makes your site load faster and delivers a great browsing experience to your visitors. You can use pre-designed themes that BigCommerce offers for different niche-based ecommerce businesses to do this quickly and easily.
• Make sure your website is easy to use and navigate. Use clear and concise product descriptions, and make it easy for customers to find what they're looking for.
• Offer customer support that is quick and responsive. Make sure you have a team of experts who are ready to help your customers with any questions or problems they may have. You can also deploy a chatbot to handle multiple requests at once.
• Use social media to engage with your customers. This will help you build customer loyalty and create positive relationships with your customers.

By following these tips, you'll be able to improve your customer experience and see an increase in sales and revenue. So make sure to implement them into your ecommerce store today.

4. Increased Use of AI and Machine Learning

In the world of ecommerce, AI and machine learning are becoming increasingly important. In fact, 51% of ecommerce brands have implemented automation technologies across sales, marketing, and customer service teams to deliver a better user experience.

If you're looking to stay ahead of the curve, then you need to start using AI and machine learning in your ecommerce store. Let’s take a look at some of the most important use cases of AI and machine learning in the ecommerce industry.

• AI and machine learning can help you personalize your customer experience. You can offer personalized product recommendations, discount codes, and reminders based on customer preferences and shopping habits.This will make your customers feel special and appreciated, and it will increase their loyalty to your store.
• AI and machine learning can also help you improve your website's search engine rankings. You can use machine learning algorithms to analyze your website's content and structure and make recommendations on how to improve it.Following the SEO enhancing suggestions offered by powerful machine learning algorithms will help you rank higher on search engine results pages and attract more traffic to your online store.
• AI and machine learning can also help improve your sales and marketing efforts. You can use AI-powered solutions to analyze your customer data, identify current trends, and then, better target your marketing efforts.This will help you increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and reach a larger audience using less time and money.

AI and machine learning are the future of ecommerce, and they are here to stay. So, start implementing the right technologies and ecommerce tools today.

5. The Rise of Augmented Reality (AR)

Another ecommerce trend that will take off in 2024 is augmented reality. With the release of Apple's ARKit and Google's ARCore, more and more people are starting to use augmented reality for shopping purposes.

And it's not hard to see why. Augmented reality offers a unique and immersive shopping experience that can't be found anywhere else. Plus, it's a great way to promote your products and services.

IKEA is one of the pioneers of using AR for ecommerce retail. It launched an augmented reality (AR) application that allows shoppers to place various furniture items in their homes virtually and visualize how they will look in real time.

The users just need to point their device to the desired spot in the room and then, drag and drop the product they want to buy into that space.

Wouldn’t it be fun for your shoppers to try your products before making a purchase online? It certainly will be.

To start using augmented reality to help your consumers shop online, you should:

• Make sure your ecommerce store is optimized for AR. Use high-quality images and videos, and make sure your products are easy to find and order.
• Use AR-specific keywords in your product titles and descriptions. This will help shoppers find your products when they're using augmented reality.

6. Sustainability and Eco-Friendly Shopping Are Gaining Popularity

In 2024, ecommerce will continue to grow in popularity, and sustainability and eco-friendly shopping will become more important. 

More and more people are beginning to care about the environment, and they're looking for ways to shop that are eco-friendly.

If you want to capture this new ecommerce market of environmentally conscious consumers, then you need to start incorporating sustainability and eco-friendly shopping into your ecommerce store.

Here are a few tips on how to do it:

• Offer a wide variety of eco-friendly products. This will appeal to customers who are looking for sustainable and environmentally friendly products.
• Make sure your ecommerce store is optimized for green shopping. Use images and videos that showcase your eco-friendly products, and make it easy for customers to find them.
• Promote your sustainability initiatives. Let customers know about the steps you're taking to make your ecommerce store more sustainable.

One great example of an ecommerce brand built on a sustainable business model is Patagonia. This outdoor clothing and gear brand aims to produce clothing that lasts a long time and encourages buying less to reduce consumption.

The company has a lot of sustainable policies and is vocal about environmental issues in its marketing messages as well. In fact, the brand contributes 1% of its annual revenue to non-profits working for environmental conservation and sustainability.

7. Social Commerce and Influencer Marketing

In the world of ecommerce, social commerce and influencer marketing are becoming increasingly popular. The number of U.S. social commerce buyers is expected to increase to 96.1 million in 2022.

This new and trending ecommerce marketing strategy increases social media sales, you should make sure that your brand’s social feeds give your followers a glimpse into a digital shop window. Instead of constantly offering deals, here is how CLUSE’s Instagram feed shows off its products smartly with user-generated content (UGC).

From resharing customer photos to unboxing their favorite watches and using the right hashtags, CLUSE does it all to funnel its followers back to the shop and make a purchase.

Do you want to increase your ecommerce sales with social selling? Here are a few tips that can help you get started:

• Use social media to create engaging content that will capture the attention of your audience.
• Set up your Facebook and Instagram Shops to allow consumers to buy your products directly from the platform they are on.
• Build partnerships with influencers who are relevant to your business and can influence the purchase decisions of your target audience. You can also offer custom discount codes that each influencer can share with their audience to increase sales.
• Promote your ecommerce store on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Also read: Ecommerce Marketing Trends

8. Smart Mobile Shopping Apps

It’s become fairly normal to go window shopping at brick-and-mortar shops with the full intention of purchasing the product online. 

That’s why this trendy new ecommerce trend is taking over.

This is usually because of better pricing either due to a discounted sale online, coupons, or simply that the price is better.

Owners of brick-and-mortar shops may feel that their business is simply a showroom to display the real products, with few sales to boot. 

Now brick-and-mortar shops, especially small, local shops can use mobile apps to get mobile shoppers to buy their products.

Vocal for Local offers small, local businesses selling arts, crafts, food, handmade jewelry, and cosmetics the chance to register as a seller on their platform and sell directly to the local community using the app.

It’s a similar idea to Etsy but focused on a smaller area where customers can simply purchase a product and pick it up, or have it quickly delivered to them the same day.

The best part is, if interest in your shop grows, chances are customers who might want to purchase products but aren’t sure can simply go to your shop and inspect the products before purchasing them.

9. Subscription Models Are Becoming the Norm

Subscription-based software and services are becoming increasingly popular. Even software like Microsoft Office, which previously was a one-time purchase for single-use only, has now turned into Microsoft 365. 

With Microsoft 365 you get cloud-based storage, access to future updates, as well as cloud-connected features allowing for collaboration on files in real-time.

You can still purchase Office 21 as a one-time purchase, which gives you access to all the 2021 tools like Word and PowerPoint. The difference is that you won’t get any future updates and none of the other perks.

Moving away from SaaS, there has also been a rise in subscription-based food delivery and other products.

An excellent example of one such service using this popular ecommerce trend is the Dollar Shave Club.

The Dollar Shave Club starts with a $9 subscription fee that gets you a Razor and blades with extras to try out. Shipping is free as well.

If you enjoy the product, you can keep the subscription for $20 every 2 months with free shipping. In that case, you’ll get 2 packs of fresh razors and 16 cartridges every 2 months.

Subscription services like this and HelloFresh, which sends you fresh groceries, pre-portioned with recipes weekly, help remove the burdens of creating groceries lists, going shopping, and doing prep. 

This is why it’s such a large market already, with a lot of potential growth still. With the busy lives of modern people, and work taking up more time, people prefer services like these to help save time and money.

10. A Seamless Shopping Experience Online

Buying from brick-and-mortar shops is something of the past. The thing is, even online shops are having to compete.

With what, you ask?

There are plenty of channels available for ecommerce within social media applications. Facebook and Instagram both have dedicated shops where followers can see your products and buy them directly from there.

Meta has all the details on their website. Platforms like BigCommerce and Shopify support listing products on these social media platforms already.

11. Customers Respond to Video

It’s a well-known fact at this point that videos seem to increase user interest, as Wyzeowl’s data proves. Over 86% of businesses use video marketing in some capacity, with 87% of businesses increasing engagement on the page and 82% successfully bettering the page’s jump rate.

“They serve to create new product awareness among our target market, announce new features, and demonstrate our products’ usability. Product marketing videos help us imprint a lasting product description on the user’s mind,” says Jonathan Tian, Co-Founder of Mobitrix.

An excellent example of this is Slack’s landing page. This video plays to the problems that Slack is solving by presenting work-from-home problems in the video.

A great landing page video should:

• Present your service or product and what it does clearly to the viewer.
• Create a need for the product or service.
• Highlight key features that differentiate it from similar products or services.
• Have good production quality with clear video and audio, preferably high definition.

Video marketing is still one of the top ecommerce trends in 2024.

12. More Ways to Pay

Customers are now spoiled with a plethora of e-wallets, as well as the usual bank cards and mobile bank applications.

This means that different customers will have different needs when it comes to paying. 

The more options available to pay, the more customers you’ll potentially convert, since a user who can’t pay for a product from your business, will simply buy it somewhere else that does support their preferred payment method.

What’s really happening is the centralization of payments. With QR codes increasingly becoming the form of payment, especially in Asia and other developing countries, they will soon become the preferred payment method around the world.

A QR code linked to your bank or e-wallet of choice that can be scanned by any other mobile bank application or e-wallet creates a centralized system where any preferred bank or e-wallet is accepted.

An excellent example is Venmo, which allows you to transfer funds between two Venmo accounts using a QR code.

Just to prove how popular these P2P services are, Venmo made an estimated $850 million in 2021. This was an 88% increase from the year before. 

13. Chatbots Improve Shopping Experiences

Chatbots are becoming smarter and are a key part of the shopping experience at this point.

Firstly, chatbots can offer 24-hour assistance. This is important, especially for online shops. Users can shop during any hour of the day and might need assistance. Larger businesses might have real customer service, mostly at certain times of the day. 

Smaller brands and businesses might not be able to afford a large customer service team, which is where a chatbot could take over.

If you offer a customized experience, filling in long forms can be intimidating to users. Chatbots can break up these forms into shorter Q&As.

14. Personalized Shopping Experiences

According to McKinsey & Company, 80% of customers today have become accustomed to personalized shopping experiences. This is especially true for younger generations, especially Millennials and Gen-Z.

As I’ve mentioned earlier in the list, machine learning is the way forward. One of machine learning’s most valuable uses is being able to create custom experiences according to data collected from previous customers.

This allows your ecommerce shops to suggest products and services that might interest the customer. Companies like Netflix use advanced AI as well to create custom suggestions for users.

AI and machine learning aren’t the only ways to customize user experiences though.

Kaikini offers fully-customizable bikinis. You can choose the style of bikini, the fabric, the colors, and the pattern.

15. Direct-to-Consumer Businesses Continue to Flourish

Last, but certainly not least, let’s not forget that direct-to-consumer businesses are still going strong.

Some consumers prefer visiting brands’ websites, instead of retailers. According to Brandshop, 88% of customers prefer to buy directly from the manufacturer or brand than a retailer.

Consumers prefer buying directly from a manufacturer, because it allows them to choose a product that aligns more with their preferences and beliefs, than only browsing what a retailer chose to sell.

Another reason customers are making their way directly to manufacturers has to do with the fact that most consumers travel through multiple channels during their purchase journey.

A customer might watch a video of their favorite TikToker. Whether it’s sponsored content or not, they might be interested in a product they saw in the video.

This leads them to websites where they can find reviews and opinions about said product. It could be on Amazon’s customer reviews, Trustpilot, or even somewhere like Reddit or Quora.

From there, they’ll either make their way to a retailer to see what the product looks like in person before purchasing it online from the manufacturer, or just buy it immediately from the manufacturer without seeing it in real life.

FAQs

Ready to Take Advantage of These Ecommerce Trends?

Ecommerce trends will continue to evolve. But focusing on the key ecommerce trends discussed above will help you ensure that your business is prepared to capitalize on the evolving ecommerce landscape.

For new ecommerce trends and strategies, stay tuned to my blog and I’ll keep guiding your way to ecommerce success. You can also hire my team of professionals to do ecommerce marketing, landing page optimization, and much more. Keep reading to learn more!