2024 is set to be another bumper year for the eCommerce industry, and with it comes another set of top eCommerce trends promising to change the landscape.
The world of eCommerce is expanding like never before. Worldwide eCommerce sales totalled more than 5.2 trillion USD in 2021. This momentum shows no sign of slowing.
If you want to take your eCommerce store to the next level, keeping an eye on trends is vital. Here are 5 important eCommerce trends worth watching across 2024.
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eCommerce Trends: Your Guide for 2024
1. A Change in Shopper Expectations
Consumer behaviors have changed. Even older generations, once weary of shopping online, have started to become eCommerce aficionados. But with more people shopping online more regularly, it’s not just behaviors that have changed. Shopper expectations have changed too.
Shoppers now have much higher expectations of online sellers. This extends to all areas of the shopping process. Product range, customer service, website design, shipping costs, and delivery times all play an important role.
Consumers now expect a fast and efficient service as standard. After all, there’s plenty of competition out there if you’re not able to deliver.
Improve your Shoppers Experience
Stepping up your eCommerce business is vital here. Every step of your shopping process should be as sleek and streamlined as possible.
Whether you use WordPress or Magento, there are steps you can take to optimize your eCommerce website for speed and performance. Undertaking this task, and maintaining your efforts, is a great place to start.
In everything you do, you should keep shopper experience and expectations at the forefront of your mind.
2. An Explosion in Home Products
We’ve all been spending more time at home. With remote and flexible working becoming more commonplace, this trend is likely to continue throughout 2024 and further into the future. This has had an impact on both the amount of online shopping taking place worldwide, and the sort of items consumers are buying online.
There’s been an explosion in goods that can be used in the home. This ranges from home entertainment solutions to household cleaning products.
Once underrepresented in eCommerce sales, these niches have seen a boom. Now that consumers have tapped into the efficiency of buying these kinds of products online, expect to see this eCommerce trend continue throughout 2024 and beyond.
How to Make the Most of Home Products Trend
If you’re already in the home goods category, you’re perfectly placed to make the most of this eCommerce trend. If not, look at ways you can adapt your product offering (or your marketing) to appeal to this industry segment. Obviously, this will be easy for some sellers more than others – but eCommerce is all about being adaptable and moving with changes.
3. Social Commerce Continues to Grow
The integration of eCommerce and social media has been coming to fruition over the last few years. 2024 is where we’ll see it take center stage.
Social media is the perfect place for online stores to connect with their customers and find new ones, and the big players know this. Instagram’s shopping functions have been a big hit with buyers and sellers alike. And Facebook is developing new ways to help eCommerce stores sell online through the platform.
Research and Markets has predicted big things for social commerce to come over the nearest five years. It’s estimated that it will become a market worth more than 2.9 trillion USD by 2026. So it’s definitely an eCommerce trend to keep an eye on into the future.
How to Make the Most of Social Ecommerce Trend
Every online business should have some form of social media presence. There are some must-know social media platforms, and all have their pros and cons when it comes to social selling.
Not every platform is right for every business, but keeping abreast of the latest developments on your chosen platforms will help you ride the wave of social commerce over the coming years.
4. Voice Search Goes Mainstream
Amazon first launched the Echo, their smart speaker, in 2014. Since then, smart speakers have grown rapidly in popularity.
What does this mean for eCommerce? Well, as smart speaker sales grow, so does the number of consumers using them to shop. Voice commerce, as it’s known, is a quick and easy way for shoppers to place orders with retailers.
In fact, the trend is so pertinent that it’s been labelled “the next major disruptive force to impact retail.” That’s quite the bold statement. Voice search spending is projected to reach 40 billion USD in 2024. That’s quite the big figure. Both highlight that online sellers should definitely keep an eye on this eCommerce trend.
How to Make the Most Voice Search Trend
In order to make the most of this trend, you should prioritize optimizing your website for voice search. This includes making changes the language you use, restructuring content, and improving loading times. Semrush go into more detail about how to optimize for voice search.
5. Marketplaces Become the Norm
Just like malls revolutionized shopping in the 1980s, marketplaces are changing the way people shop online. Online marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy allow shoppers to combine items from multiple retailers into one order. Marketplaces offer the convenience and speed that shoppers are looking for. It means online making one order, filling in their details just once, and receiving just one package to their door.
Expect to see online marketplaces go from strength to strength in 2024 as well as more and more emerging.
How to Make the Most of Marketplaces Trend
Selling through large marketplaces like Amazon can be great for your brand, but niche marketplaces like Etsy are great too. Even local, independent online marketplaces can be great selling channels for small businesses.
Or, you could even transform your website into a multi-vendor marketplace. We have our very own Magento extension that allows you to easily transform your eCommerce store into an online marketplace.
eCommerce Trends: A Summary
Like every year, eCommerce stores are bound to see both opportunities and obstacles. These trends are just a few of the factors set to change how people buy and sell online.
Now you know which top eCommerce trends to keep an eye on, it’s over to you to implement the changes needed to keep your business growing.
Best of luck over the year!
