People have a funny way of changing their minds. What worked yesterday is suddenly undesirable today. This concept applies to almost every aspect of life, especially to shopping trends. Retailers and eCommerce businesses have to constantly adapt to consumer wants, needs, and desires to remain competitive. Even then, companies fight each other to come out on top.
To be a winner, you need to keep your finger on the pulse of evolving eCommerce trends and be flexible enough to modify your strategies accordingly. Where should you begin? We packed everything you need to know into this guide because we want you to succeed.
How Should You Start Your eCommerce Trends Exploration?
Before you can decide where you’re going, you need to be sure of where you are and where you’ve been, similar to a doctor’s approach to treating a patient. They would assess your current condition before determining the best course of action.
To develop successful strategies, you need to understand what consumers want and expect — their pain points — both now and in the near future:
- What influences online shopping decisions?
- What are their priorities?
- Where and how do they make purchases?
You may have built a better mousetrap, but you need to convince consumers that they need it and why they should choose yours over everyone else’s. How can you do that?
Not only should you understand consumer pain points, but you also need to realize what challenges the eCommerce industry will face in 2024 and what you can do to overcome them. Your strategies have to account for both customer preferences and your rival’s tactics.
To succeed, ask yourself these questions:
- What were the biggest trends for eCommerce in 2023?
- What are the biggest trends in eCommerce today?
- What are the emerging trends in eCommerce for 2024?
- What is the next big thing in eCommerce?
The success rate for eCommerce businesses is abysmal, with only 10-20% lasting more than 120 days. If you don’t want to be part of the failure statistics, use this guide’s invaluable information explaining top eCommerce trends to heart.
We will provide meaningful statistics later, but we’ll give you a sneak peek: Expect online shopping sales to soar!
What Are the Top 33 eCommerce Trends To Watch in 2024?
Let’s get right to work — drum roll, please! To make things easier, we separated these into categories. You’re welcome.
TECHNOLOGY
Artificial intelligence advances bring previously unrealistic opportunities to the table. Although some people are antsy about AI technologies, they are here and are transforming our lives in multiple ways.
Many of this year’s eCommerce trends depend on AI to power them. Predictions expect the AI-powered eCommerce market to reach almost $17 billion by 2030. eCommerce businesses must harness the possibilities or risk failure.
Choose Your Tech Stack Wisely
You need to position yourself to react quickly to fluid market trends. Rather than having to move your operations to a new eCommerce platform every few years, choose one that consistently adds and improves features that accommodate scalability and fast-paced fluctuations.
With a robust platform, you can customize and enhance your tech stack as often as you need to. The cost of making these adjustments is minimal compared to the expense of migrating to a new platform.
eCommerce Loses Its Head
In the old days (relatively speaking), a static bridge connected front-end web architecture to back-end components. Application programming interfaces allow the front end — the head — to communicate seamlessly with the back end.
APIs enable eCommerce sites to take advantage of headless eCommerce benefits. These include enhanced flexibility in multiple areas, faster data transfer speeds, and endless customization possibilities. As you delve deeper into eCommerce trends, you’ll see why these features are important.
Is It Real, or Is It Virtual Visualization?
One of the main reservations online shoppers have is the inability to visualize how a product will look in reality. This hesitation applies to everything from clothing selections to flooring choices. Wouldn’t it be great if you could see how that shirt would make your eye color pop or how those luxury vinyl flooring tiles might enhance your room’s decor? Wait, you can!
Virtual and augmented reality empower consumers by offering immersive online shopping excursions. These capabilities reassure your customers that they are making wise selections, increasing the likelihood of your eCommerce store making a sale and decreasing product returns.
Picture This: Image and Voice Searching Access Instant Results
Shoppers in 2024 are accustomed to searching for information and products online. However, it is often challenging to describe what you are looking for accurately enough to get on-point results. Enter image searching, an exciting eCommerce trend.
Budget-conscious shoppers may want to find the item at a cheaper price or need a larger quantity than one seller has in stock. Whether they take a photo of an item you see in a retail location or find online pictures, image searching can offer instant matching results.
Some eCommerce platforms already enable this feature, while others plan to implement it soon. Although image searching is a relatively new tool, online shoppers will soon expect it to be an everyday convenience. Forward-thinking eCommerce businesses will adopt this technology sooner rather than later.
Speaking of enhanced search technologies, many of today’s consumers use smart home and phone assistants daily, not giving this capability a second thought. In 2019, there were around 3.25 billion digital voice assistants; experts predict that number will increase to 8.4 billion in 2024, a figure greater than the global population. This is not only an eCommerce trend; it is an overall trend that people are beginning to expect.
Voice-activated commands simplify tasks, such as searches and ordering, providing effortless convenience — unless your assistant doesn’t understand what you are really saying. There is currently a distinct difference between human and AI language patterns, but AI capabilities are gaining ground rapidly.
Believe us, your competitors are already embracing these features and working to improve them. Don’t risk your company’s future by failing to join them.
Start Your Machine-Learning Engines!
Machine learning is an integral part of utilizing AI capabilities. By using statistical methods, algorithms, and data, machine learning teaches AI computers how to accurately mimic human learning.
Machine learning enables various key functions that are invaluable to eCommerce businesses, such as product innovations, creating personalized online shopping experiences, and data-driven decisions. All of these are necessary to keep up with eCommerce trends.
Supercharge Your Website
CERN launched the first publicly available World Wide Web software on April 30, 1993. Several news outlets in the mid-90s reported that the “internet thing” would not ever be popular. Fast forward to 2024, when around 5.3 billion people, representing 65.7% of the world’s population, use the internet.
Compared to inaugural dial-up internet speeds, even today’s phones are lightning fast. Our smallest devices in 2024 have more computing power than extremely large machines in the past.
While the first websites were basically blocks of awkward text, contemporary sites have bells and whistles that were inconceivable in 1993. Anyone under 30-ish takes these for granted, and that generation has a lot of buying power.
Stay ahead of the race by optimizing your website’s appearance and functionalities. Make them fast, secure, reliable, convenient, and hassle-free. Keep in mind that 91% of Americans use their phones for online shopping, so use mobile-friendly formats and functions to retain these customers.
User experience can make or break eCommerce businesses, which brings us to the next category of eCommerce trends for 2024.
USER EXPERIENCE
If you don’t keep consumers and what they expect at the forefront of your various business strategies, your eCommerce store probably won’t stay afloat for long. Customers in 2024 may not have as much discretionary income, so you need to cater to them to convert clicks into eCommerce sales.
All Aboard the Hybrid Retail Train
People no longer have to choose either online or in-store shopping. Today, many D2C retailers combine the best of both worlds to satisfy customer preferences, including these eCommerce trends:
- Researching online, purchasing offline.
- Placing online orders for local pickup or delivery.
- Expecting digital app syncing for seamless shopping continuity.
- Using digital wallets for point-of-sale purchases.
- Including social media outlets as sales channels.
Omnichannel expansions let shoppers make transactions at their convenience: when, where, and how they want. This fact applies to brick-and-mortar retailers and eCommerce businesses alike.
Statistics prove that investing in omnichannel (at least three sales channels) strategies benefits companies in measurable ways, such as higher value per transaction, increased purchase frequency, and decreased cost for each contact.
Go Native
Trying to communicate with someone whose native language is different from yours often presents challenges. Although many people speak English worldwide, not everyone understands the nuances.
If you plan to expand your eCommerce store to sell internationally — another eCommerce trend — you don’t want miscommunication to cause problems. Companies in the U.S. whose customers primarily speak another language face similar hurdles.
Using native languages for item descriptions and checkout pages shows your customers that you respect and value them. It also leaves less room for avoidable errors.
Keep Your Eye on The Ball: Humans Matter Too
It’s easy to get lost in the many ways to use AI-powered solutions to boost efficiency, accuracy, and overall customer experience. As these technologies empower more aspects of daily life, interacting with humans could become rare — if we let it. Although you should integrate AI-based eCommerce trends into your operations, don’t disregard the value of human connections.
Dealing with another human adds a personal layer to experiences, even when shopping online. Keep in mind that while younger shoppers may react better to AI-powered interactions, more mature consumers value the human touch.
Level Up To Address Consumer Quality Concerns
If you ask 100 online shoppers what quality means to them in their shopping experience, you will likely get 100 different answers. What is important to one person might be inconsequential to another. Although ideals like quality goods and brand loyalty remain, you can’t count on them to convert interest into eCommerce sales.
When you keep a close eye on consumer and eCommerce trends, you can adjust your practices to ease your customers’ minds. When deciding between purchasing options, many people look for:
- Shipping methods, speed, and cost.
- High value for less money.
- Easy and free returns.
- Desirable incentives and discounts.
- Offerings at varying price points.
Pay close attention to customer data and analytics to understand what your clientele wants. You should also look into what your competitors are doing to meet these desires. Create your own plans to raise the bar.
On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!
People are constantly on the go these days, but that doesn’t mean they’re out of touch. Many American children use cell phones, and almost every adult has multiple portable devices.
Customer journeys when it comes to shopping might start on a laptop before work, transition to a tablet during lunch, and finalize on a phone at night, in bed. The majority of online shoppers use mobile devices. Being able to access internet-based sources from anywhere is no longer a luxury; it’s the norm, and you need to recognize that vital fact or risk losing customers and sales.
One of the most important eCommerce trends for 2024 is the need to cater to mobile shoppers. That means optimizing websites and apps for mobile formats, enabling biometrics, supporting one-click payments, and investing in robust features for your mobile apps.
Pamper Your Peeps
Everyone likes to feel appreciated, especially consumers who patronize your eCommerce store. If they choose to spend their time and money with you instead of your competition, tailoring their shopping experience to them can earn their loyalty.
Appropriate personalization might include:
- Product suggestions based on browsing and purchasing histories.
- Offering comparable but less expensive product alternatives.
- Offering a wider variety of choices in often-shopped categories.
- Adapting marketing strategies to relieve consumer pain points.
- Utilizing features in robust customer relationship management systems to customize interactions.
Be careful that you don’t go too far, though. Consumers who believe your methods invade their privacy will likely take their business elsewhere.
Pampering your people with these customized eCommerce trends shows you value them. Personalized experiences that show your customers you understand who they are and what they expect go a long way to earning repeat business and brand loyalty.
Pinpoint Pricing Strategies
Particularly if you are expanding into international markets, pricing strategies matter. American prices typically end with the number 9, but other countries use round numbers. Understand how your audience perceives pricing to make transactions more comfortable.
Keep in mind that consumers may be more reluctant to make larger purchases in 2024. This is an election year in America, and the economy typically reflects uncertainty in those times. While you need to make a profit, don’t price yourself out of business.
Put Your Best Customer Service Foot Forward
A renewed focus on customer satisfaction is behind several of the 2024 eCommerce trends, including this one. Like it or not, many online shoppers equate a single customer service experience with the quality of your brand. If your customer satisfaction options fail to meet expected standards, you can lose a lot of ground.
Your team (including chatbots) needs immediate access to customer data and a knowledge base that allows them to solve concerns or answer questions. Whatever their pain point, you have one opportunity to fix it right the first time.
Remember that while some people prefer to communicate by phone, others want to use live chat or other forms of digital communication. By offering multiple options, you are paving the way for improved customer experiences.
Up Your Game With New and Improved Chatbots
Online shoppers in 2024 want immediate service, even at 3 a.m. By utilizing chatbots, your eCommerce store can respond instantly. This fast gratification satisfies many customers, although chatbot limitations sometimes make human response necessary. The vast majority of people prefer competent support services over speed.
That’s why developers are focusing on enhancing chatbot capabilities. From accurate responses and placing customer orders to making product selections that complement recent purchases, chatbots can perform multiple tasks so your humans can take care of more intricate responsibilities.
ONLINE SHOPPING SALES CHANNELS
To be successful in the highly competitive online market, your company needs to reach consumers where they are and give them what they want. Several eCommerce trends for 2024 reflect that necessity and provide avenues to accomplish those goals.
Automate Your B2B
According to Forrester, eCommerce B2B sales in the U.S. may reach $3 trillion by 2027, almost doubling 2021 figures. This unprecedented expansion, although welcome, presents challenges that some eCommerce businesses are struggling to meet.
Understanding that convenience and speed are crucial B2B buyer pain points, you should:
- Digitize catalogs
- Implement custom pricing structures.
- Introduce or improve incentivized loyalty programs.
- Streamline and automate ordering, A/R and A/P functions, and fulfillment.
Utilizing digital tools, such as enterprise resource planning solutions, can help you adapt.
If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them
The internet is saturated with eCommerce businesses. Smaller stores with independent websites have a hard time competing with online giants like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay. Although selling through major marketplaces requires paying for the privilege, these sales channels can dramatically increase your exposure.
Hanging your virtual shingle in an online marketplace is an eCommerce trend for 2024, but you should weigh the pros and cons. Careful participation using savvy techniques may offset some of the disadvantages.
Plan an International eCommerce Venture
Internet functionality, digital payments, and streamlined fulfillment options offer more options to online shoppers. American consumers may order goods from across the globe, potentially decreasing domestic sales.
To make up for lost ground, some U.S.-based eCommerce businesses are entering international markets. Although there may be a learning curve while you work out the kinks, this opportunity can be lucrative.
Row Your Sales Boat Into the Livestream Purchasing Flow
Television infomercials might annoy you, but the fact remains that they work. Many consumers relate better to interactive, immersive shopping experiences. Reading product descriptions and viewing sterile photos and videos don’t provide that connection.
Social media and large shopping platforms recently introduced livestream shopping ads to engage online shoppers. Taking the plunge and integrating livestream options into your sales channels can increase your sales and promote brand identity.
Show Me the Money! New Payment Methods Are Here
Offering customers more payment options is a growing eCommerce trend. As more consumers migrate to mobile shopping and make online purchases, accepting more forms of payment is becoming a necessity.
Most eCommerce businesses already accept payments via PayPal, Apple Pay, Square, Venmo, and Google Pay. Buy now, pay later options are also increasingly common, with some online sellers including split payment amounts on product pages. That strategy often convinces online shoppers to close the deal while they are actively looking for products.
In the near future, look for businesses to accept wire transfers, ACH payments, and even cryptocurrency.
Social Shopping or Bust
Globally, almost 5 billion people spend an average of roughly 2.5 hours on social media platforms daily. In the U.S., almost ¾ of the population actively use social networks. Businesses can pay to advertise, providing links to their websites. However, many social media outlets now allow online shoppers to make purchases directly through their platforms.
Many Gen Z consumers make buying decisions based on social media searches, posts, ads, or influencer recommendations. To remain relevant, businesses should embrace this promising eCommerce trend and include social commerce as a sales channel.
Subscribe to Subscription eCommerce
Whether you sell services or goods, offering subscription-based products can provide ongoing, predictable income. Meanwhile, consumers enjoy the convenience of not having to remember to reorder regularly used merchandise. To be effective, you can offer:
- Custom delivery intervals
- Subscribe-and-save discounts.
- Personalized bundles
- Reliable fulfillment
- Upcoming-shipment reminders
If you offer subscriptions, include user-friendly subscription management and cancellation features. Be sure to provide a high perceived value to keep your customers happy.
MARKETING
These days, big data and analytics can help you create effective marketing strategies and adjust them quickly. Marketing eCommerce trends for 2024 utilize AI solutions heavily, empowering you to make data-based decisions.
More accurate forecasts, real-time performance metrics, and analyzing your competitors’ tactics can help you create successful, tailored campaigns to maximize your marketing investments.
Adapt Instantly With Real-Time Analytics
Machine learning and AI advances make real-time data analysis possible in 2024. This invaluable information can highlight reasons behind lost sales, showing you where to make adjustments. Tweaking your strategies instantly will likely reduce cart abandonment and bounce rates.
Don’t Underestimate the Possibilities of the Dark Side
Attributing various marketing metrics accurately is essential. Until recently, advertisers lost attribution tracking accuracy when consumers shared marketing content privately. Don’t let the complexities of mapping dark social routes intimidate you:
- Gather feedback by creating private groups.
- Utilize robust tools that can track content sharing.
- Consider the results of various techniques to accurately assess your marketing performance.
Understanding how and why people share your content using various dark social channels is a potentially rewarding eCommerce trend in 2024.
No More Cookies
Since Google’s announcement that it will eliminate third-party cookies in 2024, advertisers have gone into overdrive to find alternatives. Consumer data privacy concerns prompted this seismic shift. These cookies could track consumer habits, giving companies and organizations insights into how to target advertising to specific individuals or groups.
To compensate for losing third-party cookie data, eCommerce businesses need to collect first-party data directly from online shoppers through:
- Surveys
- Opt-in newsletters
- Questionnaires
With permission, you can now own personal data that allows you to offer personalized marketing and buying experiences.
Lights, (Video) Camera, Action!
Short-form video ads are incredibly successful for many eCommerce businesses. Before you roll the camera, consider your audience and their platform preferences. Incorporate popular music and personalities that will resonate with these potential customers.
Unleash AI-Curated Buying Experiences
Many of this year’s eCommerce trends focus on providing the customized attention that today’s consumers expect. Marketing strategies may vary depending on your industry and target audiences, but using AI-powered solutions to optimize your approach takes advantage of curated upselling and cross-selling. In turn, you will likely experience higher revenues and profits.
Unravel Blended Buying Habits
Today’s technology offers consumers options. While some complete transactions online, others use online shopping as a research tool first, then go to local stores to make their purchases.
Tracking these buying habits was difficult in the past, so marketers were unable to prove the effectiveness of their campaigns. Technological advances, such as unified customer data platforms, provide tools that can pinpoint successful digital ads by correlating them with offline consumer purchases.
LOGISTICS
B2B and B2C consumers all want to get exactly what they order, right now! If you can’t provide it, they may find a company that can. This instant gratification mentality is behind several of 2024’s top eCommerce trends.
Cut Out the Middleman
High retail overhead costs, heft fees, and the desire for first-party data are some of the reasons that many eCommerce businesses are cutting third-party retailers out of their supply chains. Direct-to-consumer approaches require an efficient, streamlined fulfillment system, but they can also create higher profits and a closer relationship with your customers.
Don’t Drop the Ball, Dropship the Goods
If you choose a reliable fulfillment partner, dropshipping is an effective and efficient distribution solution. Your fulfillment team can manage your inventory, support order management, accurately fill your orders, and provide speedy shipping. These services mean less work for you and more satisfaction for your customers.
Make It Snappy
Gone are the days when customers patiently waited days or weeks to receive their orders. Now, eCommerce trends show that consumers expect lightning-fast deliveries, sometimes as soon as the same day. Globally, the same-day delivery market should reach almost $15 billion (in USD) during 2024, and rapid growth should continue.
Warehousing your goods in strategic locations nationwide allows you to fill, ship, and deliver orders faster. Including product availability and anticipated delivery times on your product pages can influence customers to choose your items rather than a competitor’s. Real-time last-mile order tracking and green logistics are also desired features.
Instead of watching the roads for delivery trucks, consumers may soon watch the skies for incoming drones!
BRAND IDENTITY
Rounding out the top eCommerce trends of 2024, focusing on promoting your brand identity is crucial. Data breaches, shady schemes, and regulatory violations have made many consumers wary. In today’s business landscape, you have to earn customer trust with honest, transparent practices.
Different eCommerce businesses have their own markets. If you offer luxury items, your brand should exude luxury. Pet owners should identify with pet-product brands. Select your logo, website and app colors and formats, and packaging choices to convey appropriate messages to your target clientele.
Your brand tells consumers who you are, what you value, why they can trust you, and your vision. When these resonate with consumers, your company will likely form an intimate connection with a loyal new customer.
Focus on Flexibility
Consumer behaviors, desires, and expectations change constantly. To be successful, you should position your eCommerce store in a ready stance — ready to stop on a dime and adjust your operations to accommodate evolving eCommerce trends.
For agile reactions, you have to stay on top of emerging trends and potential disruptions. You also need to have operational flexibility to keep your business competitive.
Put Your Data To Work
Gathering data doesn’t do any good unless you use it effectively to improve your operations:
- Evaluate customer feedback and reviews to assess how they rate your products, prices, services, and brand.
- Use predictive analytics for inventory control.
- Adopt sustainable practices.
- Tailor product suggestions, buying experiences, and marketing strategies based on data-driven analysis.
- Focus on optimizing mobile shopping features.
Consumers may choose another brand if you don’t use your data wisely.
Do You Need More Motivation?
If this in-depth exploration of 2024’s top eCommerce trends hasn’t convinced you to take action, maybe these statistics will:
- By 2025, there will likely be 285 million American online shoppers.
- Between 2021 and 2028, the projected CAGR for online retail sales is 14.6%.
- Groceries, footwear, electronics, pet supplies, books, and clothing are a few of the top online sales categories.
- Detailed product information is important to 88% of online shoppers.
- If your website or mobile app isn’t attractive, 38% of site visitors will leave.
- Mobile shopping has an approximately 86% cart abandonment rate.
- 65% of consumers use online shopping sites to compare prices while they are in retail stores.
- 24% of online shoppers abandon their carts if they must create an account to complete their purchases.
- Voice-activated commands account for 20% of Google searches.
- 95% of Gen Z consumers own and use smartphones, with 54% of them using social media apps for four or more hours daily.
- Although 70% of consumers prefer to use credit or debit cards for online transactions, digital wallets are quickly gaining ground.
How Can AMS Fulfillment Help You Adjust to the Top 33 eCommerce Trends for 2024?
AMS Fulfillment is proud to be a Certified B-Corp, one of only 1,418 in the U.S. As a leading B2B and eCommerce fulfillment provider, we at AMS Fulfillment want you to succeed. We have more than two decades of experience providing accurate, scalable, and reliable services. Our satisfied clients include major brands, prompting our company to establish multiple locations across the country for the rapid fulfillment of 25,000-70,000 orders daily. Our cutting-edge technologies and deeply discounted shipping costs benefit our customers, and we offer several value-added services as well.
Your success and growth are our goals, and we can help in measurable ways. For more information about the top eCommerce trends for 2024 or ask questions about our services, contact AMS Fulfillment today.
