How E-Commerce Marketing Will Evolve in 2018

Six months into 2018 and we are seeing another an excellent year for the e-commerce market. Social networking, multichannel trade, last mile delivery, and several other new-age company models led to $409 billion in e-commerce earnings in 2017. All things indicate that in 2018, this years sales figure could surpass $460 billion.Let us take a look at some probable contenders which can become 2018 & 2019’s big e-commerce trends:

Voice search

Lengthy text-based conversations with Chatbots are not that convenient and texting isn’t as natural for humans as speaking. With Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Voice Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana and Samsung’s S Voice already being a big hit, it’s easy to conclude that possibilities with voice are endless. Clients are gradually receding from a keyword-based research on e-commerce sites. Today, 13 percent of U.S. homes have a smart speaker, and 36 percent of those homes regularly use the device to make purchases.The tendency of voice hunt will get more powerful in 2018 and 2019 as more U.S.-based clients, in addition to global clients, will purchase smart home supporters.Native language processing, AI, and the IoT will also add growth to voice-based e-commerce business. The Walker Sands 2017 Future of Retail Study found that more than 19 percent of 1,600 U.S. consumers have already made an online purchase using voice commands.

For online shop owners, this may pose a fresh challenge. They need to up their game to match and function client voice commands. As an example, if you’re a site which sells online fashion clothes, the shop should have the ability to understand long-tailed voice orders that cite the item name and possibly some details.As of mid 2018 voice is still emerging into mainstream but we can expect rapid consumer uptake once the benefits are apparent to shoppers. Search queries using voice commands will see an upward trend.Products currently being shopped by voice are lower value items, bought as a one-time purchase. Grocery (20%), entertainment (19%), electronics (17%), and clothing (8%) are the top categories of purchases. Meanwhile, only 39 percent of the consumers say they trust the personalized product suggestions from the smart speakers, and most people are just buying something they already know.

Chatbots and messengers

• 1 in 5 consumers would consider purchasing goods and services from a chatbot.
• 40% of consumers want offers and deals from chatbots.
• Consumers are willing to spend more than $400 through a chatbot.

Thanks to chatbots, artificial intelligence isn’t just for cutting-edge tech companies like IBM Watson and Google. Chatbots can come with a mix of natural language processing, machine learning, and live operators to perform all sorts of tasks that help businesses better serve their customers. They’re growing in popularity on Facebook Messenger, Skype, Slack, Kik, and other messaging platforms.From toll-free numbers to live chat, the next big leap that e-commerce marketing will take in 2018 will be chatbots. Chatbots provide a personal way of interacting with customers.eBay first started using chatbot technology by piloting a simple Facebook Messenger tool that reminds bidders 15 minutes before an auction listing is about to end. That way, they can remember to get a last-minute bid in.

Now they’ve expanded to offering ShopBot, a virtual personal shopping assistant that helps people find items they want (at the price they want) on eBay.For online shop owners, this translates into two big advantages: It saves a lot of cash that otherwise would have to understand consumer preferences from information.Small and medium scale businesses that are not able to invest in high-end chatbots can bank on Facebook Bots and similar cost-effective services. These intelligent messenger bots can do many automated tasks like personalized product suggestions, offer customized offers, notify of price drops and so on.With clever coding the existing technologies can be made into very capable digital assistants.

Unified Commerce

Online shopping indicated the doom of physical shops and malls. A high number of shopping malls in the USA are already shutting down. Internet shopping has stayed mainstream for the previous couple of years.In 2017 a new trend started taking shape that will become more prominent in 2018 and beyond.That’s the tendency of multichannel e-commerce. In multichannel e-commerce clients would have the choice of purchasing online and picking up their bundles via an offline destination.Not any different from ordering over the phone but Unified commerce goes a step ahead and connects all the components of e-commerce real-time. The mobile, web and the offline store—everything is brought under a single umbrella under unified commerce. Speaking of phone ordering Google has some new technology in that department also.

Video marketing

It is now the present. Video has launched its way to online shop banners and perhaps even individual product pages. Long-written product descriptions tend to be perplexing and just somewhat hard to comprehend. Even though they provide an SEO advantage, media advertising provides an upper hand over textual content using infinite reusability.Additionally, clients are more interested in seeing than studying about a product. Video marketing statistics demonstrate that videos will help attain click-through-rates around 200 to 300 percent over other kinds of articles.New kinds of media such as video are also becoming ever more common. We have smart homes in 2018 but we dont yet have smart retail in its full glory. Retail kiosks are common in 2018 but lack the richness of the emerging smart technologies.

Augmented reality

Augmented Reality in eCommerce could change things around for both customers and retailers. For clients, AR would make informed decisions which are best suited to their wants and aspirations.The IKEA Place App is an excellent example of this. It helps customers to place furniture within their spaces to understand whether the measurements are true or not. A similar app would be great for designing kitchens. IKEA even asserts that the program provides a 98 percent accuracy in setting furniture digitally in spaces. More online shops will definitely follow because this helps bring in more cost-savings from product returns in the long term.

So what will happen in 2019?

Along with chatbots, Artificial Intelligence will proceed to boost eCommerce by supplying smart product suggestions. These merchandise suggestions will be attuned to client pursuits like colour, dimensions, complete-the-look options and so forth. The AI system will derive ideas based on historic shopping habits of their client in addition to according to patterns of continuing trends.Along with the aforementioned, various other tendencies and practices of 2017 continue to be prominent in 2018. For example, all online shops would need to implement HTTPS since cybersecurity and SEO standing will come to be entirely reliant on these. Many of the API’s behind the apps also require HTTPS. It may be that in a few years HTTPS replaces HTTP. Online stores can’t skip the choice of investing in an SSL certification. They’ve become essentials to conduct an internet shop. Additionally, clients become more conscious of safety measures and how they affect their purchasing experience.

Along with voice search, augmented reality, artificial, intelligence and security, e-commerce is all set to reach a new level of experience in 2018. Get ready to be surprised by your favorite online shopping websites. Expect physical retail and the online shopping experience to merge as the smart home trend spills into smart retail.Global revenue from artificial intelligence is expected to grow rapidly from $643.7 million in 2016 to $36.8 billion by 2025. And by the looks of things, ecommerce brands will take a fair share of the pie.