16 eCommerce Trends in 2023 - The Definitive Guide

The eCommerce world is changing fast – thanks to the pandemic and murky economic trends. Brands not adapting fast enough are losing business to their competitors. But to adapt, you first need to know and understand what the eCommerce trends are as we go into 2023.

Below, we’ve outlined 16 eCommerce trends that will influence the buying decisions of online shoppers. These trends are backed by data on how consumers have shopped online in the past couple of years. Know them so that you can act fast and gain a competitive edge.

What are the trends that will shape eCommerce in 2023? Not all trends are equal. Some eCommerce trends benefit small brands, while others provide an advantage to larger retailers. Understand these 16 eCommerce trends and see which ones might shape the future of your brand.

Cross-Selling And Upselling Using AI The use of Artificial Intelligence or AI is probably going to be one of the biggest eCommerce trends in 2023 and beyond. We’ve already seen several powerful AI tools emerge and become everyone’s favorite new internet toys.

Earlier, only big players such as Amazon and Walmart had the ability to use Machine Learning (ML) and AI tools. But this year, the ground is expected to level for all players as more and more AI tools become available for smaller eCommerce stores.

AI models are trained based on consumer buying patterns. These models can learn and understand what users are buying and predict future behavior accordingly.

The most common use of ML and AI in eCommerce is what we see in the form of ‘Other Products You Might Like.’ This is called cross-selling, and AI is expected to boost cross-selling for every eCommerce store.

Upselling is a cousin of cross-selling in which an eCommerce platform suggests an upgraded version of a product to its consumers. On the checkout page, AI tools can give personalized suggestions to consumers of the upgraded version of a product they might want to buy.

So, if you want to sell more without compromising user experience, look for ways AI can help you cross-sell and upsell.

Immersive Shopping Experience Augmented Reality, or AR, is a mix of real-world objects and computer generated visuals. While Virtual Reality or VR is experiencing a virtual world using a special VR headset. Both of these technologies are expected to become a substantial part of online commerce in 2023.

Generally, when AR and VR are mentioned, people think of Metaverse by Meta (formerly Facebook). But what they don’t realize is that such technology can also be a part of the eCommerce experience.

Major eCommerce platforms have already released AR-related tools. By using these AR tools, brands can create an immersive shopping experience for their customers and boost their buying confidence.

The good news is that consumers are already reacting positively to these new technologies. When large marketplaces added VR to the shopping experience, they saw a rise of 17 percent in their conversion rates.

AR is showing even better results than VR. About 71 percent of customers bought more from B2B and B2C eCommerce when they were given an AR shopping experience.

If this number sounds lucrative, you should consider adding an immersive experience to your product catalog. You can do it using tools like Threekit and Dopple. These tools can bring any product to life using immersive 3D and augmented reality experiences.

Social Media Commerce So far, we have talked only about B2B or B2C eCommerce. But there is a new type of commerce emerging, and it’s called ‘Social Commerce.’

Social commerce or Social media commerce is nothing but eCommerce, with social media playing a large role in marketing, sales, and even showing a product catalog to consumers.

Many surveys have shown that young customers prefer to buy from those brands with whom they interact on social media. This social engagement doesn’t translate only to likes and comments but also to selling products.

Social media commerce gives a special advantage to smaller eCommerce stores. Larger brands can spend resources building and maintaining websites, but smaller brands may not have the same resources or budget. This is where social media commerce comes into the mix.

There are many one-person or small-team brands that sell exclusively on social media. These brands create a loyal following by publishing niched content. Once they get a sizable audience, they sell directly on social media apps.

Social media commerce is expected to trend in the future because of the growing social media user base. In 2021, the number of people using social media was four billion. By 2027, this number is expected to reach the six billion mark.

If you want to take a slice out of this six billion dollar pie, increase your social media presence and offer your customers the ability to buy directly from your social handles.

Customer Support Across Multiple Channels Businesses profit when their customers are happy. The best way to make your customers happy is by offering them seamless customer support.

Historically, customers would either call or email the customer support team. But eCommerce brands have realized that these channels are not efficient enough. So, they discovered new channels like bots and social media.

One survey showed that a positive customer support experience can encourage repeat purchases from 81 percent of customers. So, eCommerce brands are now offering customer support where their customers are already present: on social media and the eCommerce app.

Brands have been using chatbots for quite some time now. But the evolution of AI, ML, and natural language processing has made it possible for bots to talk in a human-like way.

Solving customer queries through bots is especially beneficial for smaller brands. Most questions get answered by bots without the need for any human interaction. If a query can’t be solved by the bot, it can refer the query to the customer support team.

You can integrate a helpdesk tool on your eCommerce platform that centralizes multiple support tickets and all customer service activities in one place. A popular choice amongst brands is Gorgias , which is an eCommerce helpdesk tool for customer support through Live chat, social media, and SMS.

Increase In Voice Search A voice search is easier, saves you time, and lets you multitask. This is why 47% of online shoppers have done voice-based shopping at least once.

Voice search is expected to become one of the most profit-driving trends of 2023 and beyond. In 2022, the value of the voice search market was $11.21 billion. And for the next five to six years, this value is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 23.7 percent. This means that by 2029, the value of the voice search market will become upwards of $49.79 billion.

Marketers have been saying that voice search is the future for quite some years. The trend didn’t really take off due to the limited capabilities of AI tools. But something changed in 2022.

Last year, AI and ML showed so much progress that every industry wanted to adopt these new technologies. eCommerce was one such industry. We already mentioned how AI could help in cross-selling, upselling, and customer support. Voice search is another trend that will be pushed forward by AI.

If you want to benefit from this trend, start optimizing your product catalog for voice searches along with text searches.

Customer Relationship Management Customer relationship management (CRM) is generally used only by B2B eCommerce businesses. CRM tools were costly, and because the average order value in the industry is higher than that of B2C, only B2B invested in CRM.

But this norm is about to change as the cost of CRM tools and strategies is lowering.

We are seeing a number of niched eCommerce brands that serve only a small community. The business of these brands depends on how well they serve their customers. In short, they need customer relationship management.

Companies such as Hubspot, Zoho, and Salesforce now also offer CRM software for smaller eCommerce brands. The best part about these CRM tools is that you don’t need a large workforce to run the tools. Automation can simplify many operational processes.

We must mention that CRM doesn’t necessarily mean booking meetings with clients or sharing client data with your team. Modern CRM includes tasks such as running loyalty programs, email marketing campaigns, social integrations, and so much more.

If you are running an online store on any mainstream eCommerce platform, you can easily integrate CRM solutions into your store. Popular CRMs like Zoho, Hubspot, and Sage offer free trials. To get you started explore this shortlist of CRM solutions and see how you can improve your customer relationships.

Click and Collect The future of shopping is digital – said everyone when Amazon and Alibaba turned from small online stores to giant corporations.

But people are now realizing that some aspects of offline shopping can not be replaced by eCommerce. So, the slogan has changed to – the future of shopping is Phygital (a mix of physical and digital).

Most people shop both online and offline. Even the most active online shoppers occasionally venture out into the marketplace. To ensure they retain their customers, eCommerce stores are now offering something called hybrid shopping.

Users who research online and purchase offline can use an online app to buy things and then go to the offline store to pick up their packages. In other words, users can now Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS).

It’s not a surprise that the largest retailers like IKEA, Target, and Walmart are leading the trend of BOPIS. According to some projections , BOPIS might surpass the value of 154 billion dollars in the next three years in the US alone.

First-Party Data Google has announced that it will phase out third-party cookies in its Chrome browser by 2024. The actual date might be postponed a few more months, but Google is adamant about “killing the cookies”. And Google Chrome is used by 65.84 percent of the whole internet.

This phasing out will affect eCommerce brands in many ways. It will compromise their reach, hit the performance of personalized ads, and create issues in performance measurement. But you do not need to worry as you can replace third-party data with first-party data.

Third-party data or cookies are simply the data collected by other brands that you can use for ad targeting. First-party data, as its name reveals, is the data collected by you. Google Chrome might stop third-party cookies, but it can stop you from collecting first-party data.

There is another benefit of first-party data: it is privacy friendly. According to a survey done on consumer confidence, about 86 percent of people said they care about their digital privacy.

According to the same survey, 47 percent of consumers said they had switched brands at least once because of a brand’s poor privacy practices. The future of online shopping is now more privacy-friendly than ever.

In 2023, you might want to stand on the right side of your consumer confidence by switching to first-party data.

Flexibility of Payment Not having the right payment option is one of the most common reasons people abandon their online shopping carts. What brands need to understand is that different regions, personas, and demographics prefer different payment options.

For example, Indian online shoppers prefer UPI payments. US shoppers, on the other hand, favor digital wallets over other payment methods. Cryptocurrencies are not popular yet, but some tech enthusiasts prefer sending digital coins over dealing with fiat currency.

Thankfully, fintech companies have made it easy to integrate alternative payment options into eCommerce stores. Even smaller online retailers can integrate the most popular payment methods, such as digital wallets, credit cards, debit cards, and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) solutions.

Speaking of BNPL, many big eCommerce brands have rolled out or are in the process of rolling out their own BNPL services. They are partnering with banks and other financial institutions to ease the BNPL sign-up process.

If you think a portion of your customers are not buying because of a cash crunch, you should consider offering BNPL and other alternative payment methods to your customers.

Sustainable Online Shopping The pandemic made people rethink different aspects of their daily lives, including the products they buy and consume. A survey showed that post-pandemic, 52 percent of consumers around the globe have started to value sustainability issues.

There are many new brands in big categories, such as apparel and personal care, that cater only to environment-conscious consumers. Some of these brands were launched only a year or two ago but are doing millions in sales because they are riding the sustainable online shopping wave.

Big established brands have also realized that their loyal customers might move to other brands if they don’t make their product lines environment friendly. They are not as agile as new startups, but many of them have pledged to go carbon-neutral by the end of the decade.

Whether you have your own product line or third-party sellers on your eCommerce platform, offering sustainable online shopping to your customers should be a priority.

If changing your product line sounds daunting, you can start with something small such as shipping products in carbon-neutral packaging. If your customers respond positively to carbon-neutral packaging, you can invest more in sustainable shopping and make your warehouses zero-waste.

Subscription Models Customers want to know their expenses ahead of time, and sellers want to predict their sales numbers in advance. A win-win situation, in this case, would be adopting subscription models wherever possible.

The subscription market is currently growing at a 68% percent compound annual growth rate. Within the next three years, this market would be worth $478 billion .

In the past, only software solutions and digital media publications dominated the subscription market. But the predictability factor of the subscription model makes it more lucrative than many other business models.

Now, eCommerce brands are finding ways to sell products through the same model. Any product that gets consumed repeatedly can be sold as a subscription. A few good examples are recurring fresh food delivery, certain grooming products, multivitamins, etc.

eCommerce brands can acquire customers by offering free delivery and lower prices as benefits to their subscription plans. The longer the term of the subscription plan, the more predictable revenue you can generate.

Selling a product repeatedly has become as easy as selling it once. Loyalty and subscription tools such as Yopto , Smile , and LoyaltyLion can integrate with every major eCommerce platform and turn your one-time visitor into a life-long customer.

Subscription models aren’t perfect yet. High churn is one of the main challenges that keep them from becoming the most popular eCommerce trend in 2023. Yet, the predictable revenue aspect makes it worth experimenting with the model.

Automation of Marketing eCommerce brands aren’t strictly considered tech companies, as a majority of processes are still done manually. But innovative eCommerce brands with enough technical resources are automating their processes as best as they can.

In the near future, marketing is expected to become the most automated. With the help of ML, eCommerce brands are already automating their day-to-day marketing processes, like follow-up emails, outreach, and ads.

eCommerce companies used to rely on generic text messages for marketing. But when companies ditched generic text messages for personalized emails and ads, conversion rates and customer engagement increased.

According to one forecast , automated marketing will grow at about 13 percent. At this rate, the total value of marketing automation will reach the value of $9.5 billion by 2027.

The automation of marketing is not a trend set by the liking of customers or businesses themselves. The value that eCommerce brands are getting from marketing automation is as high as saving more than six hours a week for marketers.

Popular marketing automation tools like Klaviyo and Dotdigital offer free demos. You can get a personalized demo anytime to check if your brand can benefit from marketing automation.

On top of saving time for marketers, these tools will also help you solve common eCommerce issues like cart abandonment.

More User-Generated Content 2022 was the year when people chose their peers over brands. We saw higher social media engagement on personal accounts than on brand accounts.

In fact, that is why personal branding became a buzzword. User-generated content (UGC) is a proven way eCommerce brands can benefit from this wave of peer trust. After all, reviews on product pages are like product recommendations from your friends.

eCommerce brands brought in the feature of product reviews to showcase that the people who have already bought their product like it. Although this feature was already helpful for most consumers, UGC will play a big part as user trust is now shifting away from brands.

One lesser-explored form of UGC is sharing product reviews on social channels. A review featured on a brand’s social media handle is a big incentive for consumers to leave reviews.

Another incentive is offering discounts on a future purchase for leaving a product review. Not only can this boost the number of reviews, but it can also increase retention rates.

UGC can also be smartly embedded in influencer marketing. Budding influencers who have a following are happy to share their product reviews if you ship them products. Since such reviews are technically not paid for, they can be counted as UGC.

eCommerce brands need to be sure that their products are good enough. Since influencers are not paid for their reviews, they are free to leave negative remarks about your products.

Faster Deliveries Most eCommerce retailers know their customers expect their purchases to reach their doors as quickly as possible. But they might not realize how many customers are dissatisfied with current delivery timings.

Only about 15 percent of customers are content with their current delivery timings. The rest expect eCommerce brands to ship orders to them faster.

Amazon solved its problem of delivering faster by building large inventory warehouses globally. Companies that have the necessary resources should consider imitating Amazon’s solution.

If eCommerce companies build their own inventory houses, they can also solve the problem of providing affordable shipping. A common reason why people abandon their shopping carts is because of the high shipping rates.

Headless Commerce Headless content management systems (CMSs) have been popular in the digital media publishing industry for quite some time now. And this trend of using headless technology has also permeated the eCommerce industry.

A headless solution means decoupling the front end and the back end of an app or a website. Headless commerce can deliver content to any type of front-end framework with the help of Application Programming Interfaces or APIs.

Using this infrastructure, eCommerce brands can serve content to any device such as desktop, laptop, mobile, smart fitness devices, and even smart speakers.

As mentioned above, it is expected that consumers will do more voice-based shopping in the upcoming year. By serving content on Internet of Things (IoT) devices, eCommerce retailers can benefit from the surge in voice search.

The key benefit of headless commerce that makes it worth investing in is that it allows retailers to quickly add new sales channels. A headless backend can unify all types of shopping experiences and can be run from a single administrative dashboard.

Since the sales of IoT devices have been growing at a high rate for the past years, many eCommerce giants have already invested in building a headless infrastructure. The biggest players, such as McDonald’s, Toyota, and Amazon, have already streamlined omnichannel selling.

Impact of Inflation Consumers don’t care about the specific percentage of inflation. They do care when everyday-use items keep getting costlier, and their budget gets tighter. Data from past inflation cycles shows that consumers from every class except the top 1 percent become mindful of their shopping.

With inflation hitting us in 2023, eCommerce retailers will have to adjust their sales strategies accordingly. The foremost strategy is that brands are changing their return policies to counter the inflation-influenced lowered sales.

Consumers who buy with a tight budget need extra assurance from the seller in the form of an easy return policy. Big sellers have a great opportunity here as they have enough resources to bear the cost of returned products.

According to a survey , about 92 percent of buyers said they are likely to buy from a company offering an easy return process.

What to Focus On? You can’t possibly capitalize on all the online shopping trends at the same time. So, the question arises – what do you focus on first?

Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer. Each trend has the potential to boost your sales and add more to your bottom line. But there is one thing you can do to distill this list: find the perfect mix of budget and Return on Investment (ROI).

If you’re already generating cash flow to invest back in the business, it may make sense to invest in tech or infrastructure that might cost more but also has the potential to give higher ROI. If you are low on cash flow, jump on a trend that needs lesser initial investment but still has solid potential to boost sales. The final choice is yours.

Going Beyond 2023 Rarely do some trends go beyond the status of trend and become a must-do for an organization. For example, personalized product suggestions were once a new trend but this trend has had such an impact that eCommerce retailers can’t ignore it and simply must implement.

If you want to invest in trends with the highest probability of going beyond 2023, focusing on consumer experience. This includes offering an immersive shopping experience, payment flexibility, and fast deliveries.

The Bottom Line eCommerce retailers are expected to see massive growth despite the slow economy and high inflation. So, watch out for emerging trends to ensure you stay ahead of and grow faster than your competition.

FAQs 1. What's new in eCommerce? The immersive shopping experience, click and collect, and headless commerce are some trends that are totally new in the eCommerce space.

2. What is the next big thing in eCommerce? The use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to make accurate, personalized suggestions might become the next big thing in eCommerce.

3. What aspect of eCommerce will continue growing? Everything that makes the customer shopping experience better will continue to grow. A few examples of this are faster deliveries and payment flexibility.

4. How will eCommerce change in 2023? B2B eCommerce might not grow as fast as B2C eCommerce because of inflation and the slow economy. Social channels will play an important role not just in product sales but also in providing instant customer service.

5. What will eCommerce look like in 2025? The eCommerce industry in 2025 will be more automated than ever. Many online retailers may start offering same-day deliveries.

6. Will eCommerce grow in 2023? Yes, eCommerce is expected to grow in 2023. In 2021, consumers around the globe did online shopping worth $5.2 trillion. By the end of 2023, this number is expected to increase to $6.3 trillion.

7. What is trending in eCommerce? The use of ML and AI, an increase in voice search, first-party data, marketing automation, subscription models, and sustainable shopping are trending now in the eCommerce space.

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