eCommerce Trends for 2022: A Vanguard’s Guide
· 35% of customers say that the ability to virtually try a product would lead to them shopping online more often (BigCommerce).
· Personalization can boost eCommerce revenue by as much as 25% (BCG)
· 58% of customers ditch websites with poor CX (Microsoft)
What all these numbers tell us is that eCommerce has not only evolved but has also come to the forefront in the past few years. The pandemic has provided further impetus to this shift. Customers have been quick to adapt, so it is but natural that their expectations have evolved too. eCommerce success factors are far more complicated now, so hitting gold would mean staying on top of, and ahead of eCommerce trends.
If you’re looking to strike digital gold this year, here are some of the most significant eCommerce trends for 2022:
B2C-Like Experiences — The New Normal
Whether you’re a supplier, manufacturer, distributor, or retailer, customer expectations have come to become increasingly homogenized in favor of the B2C experience. Be it product content, taxonomy, or imagery, customers want the best there is. Even better, they want experiences that are tailor-made for their preferences — personalization — as it is now commonly known. Similarly, customers are getting increasingly habituated to self-serving models, another B2C-esque attribute.
Online stores are no longer mere extensions of brick-and-mortar setups. They offer a wider, more instant means of connecting with customers, and must be adapted accordingly. They must be instant, personal, and intuitive.
The D2C Revolution
While the keyword ‘D2C’ had merely 880 searches per month in 2017, the number has now sky-rocketed to 4.4K searches per month (Semrush). D2C, or direct-to-customer, is a marketing model that allows businesses to sell directly to end customers, cutting out the middle man (wholesalers, distributors, marketplaces etc.).
So why are businesses looking to circumvent leading marketplaces such as Walmart and Amazon? The answer is simple: Reduced costs, better control over brand image and better customer relations. In other words, D2C selling gives brands more control over how their products sell, and how customers interact with their brand.
Engagement. Like Never Before!
Content has always been at the forefront of engagement. However, the evolution of engagement means that businesses need to find a way to go beyond. With so many businesses now going online, dry copy and images may not cut it anymore.
Brands are now digging deep into digital asset creation and management to deploy content including augmented reality (AR), 3D images, virtual photography and more. Similarly, voice search has also taken the forefront, and AI chatbots aren’t doing to shabbily either. To add to this, social commerce and influencer selling has taken engagement to a whole new level. This means businesses need to demonstrate real-world-use cases more often, using a higher number of mediums, and across a wider range of platforms.
Omnichannel Will Take the Cake
As an extension of improved engagement, brands will also be driven to expand their appeal across channels. Omnichannel engagement, though easier said than done, requires businesses to express a unique brand identity across channels, and yet cater to the unique standards of said channel. Why? Because that’s just how customers choose to connect with brands and businesses these days. So, just like your PDP can’t be a digital version of your physical shelf, your social media presence can’t bear the same treatment or tonality as your website.
Product Experience Management — Because PIM, Alone, Won’t Cut It
Wondering how you can tick all these and many more boxes in 2022? The answer is simple: Product Experience Management (PXM). Not to say that your business doesn’t need a robust product information management (PIM) platform, no. In fact, PIM is the foundation that allows your brand to build for the future. And PXM delivers just that, to begin with.
But PXM doesn’t stop here. Find the right tool and you can find all the answers in a single suite. From content-driven improvements in customer experience to streamlined syndication across all priority channels, PXM has it all. Whether it’s search and browse optimization, taxonomy or digital asset management (DAM), you need it all, and PXM delivers all this under a single umbrella of services.
Amaze Your Way Through 2022
Speaking of PXM, what better suite to turn to than Amaze PXM. The intelligence-powered native cloud software gives businesses the power of a robust, yet easy-to-use Product Information Management (PIM) software that gives end-to-end control over product information, digital asset management and product data syndication. It enables businesses to leverage a best-in-class Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform to ensure ongoing and evolving customer engagement through various digital assets. The Amaze PXM AI recommendation bot — Astro — enables businesses to build categories at lightning speed and launch products faster than ever before. To round it up, Amaze PXM enables fast and easy integration with 40+ distribution channels and online platforms, so your business is not just ready for 2022, but making the digital business future-ready!
Build for the future with Amaze PXM. Try Amaze!
About the author:
Fredric Cruz heads marketing and communication at Blue Meteor Inc. Blue Meteor is a SaaS company pioneering in creating eCommerce software and technology solutions. Blue Meteor’s primary focus is on transforming B2B and B2C companies by establishing an efficient and effective eCommerce strategy built on the bedrock of product experience.
