If you want your online retail brand to stay at the cutting-edge of website design and customer experience, follow these seven trends over the next year and discover which best suits your brand, products, and audience attitudes.
1. The Rise of AI and Machine Learning
There’s no doubt that AI is everywhere. Artificial Intelligence engines are center-stage, back-stage, and behind the camera, empowering every aspect of business that we can plug them into. Quick learning through real-world data sets, AI can adapt to the ever-changing world of commerce.
In eCommerce web design, we are most often seeing AI implemented as a predictive engine, but it has more potential even than that. AI can:
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- Personalize customer content
- Predict behavior trends more accurately than human marketing history.
- Optimize your website for performance.
- Keep your security measures adaptive to the latest threats.
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2. Immersive Visual Design
3. Virtual Reality Product Representation and AR Projections
Product imagery has reached a whole new level in helping customers determine what they love and if they have found the right item for their space. What started as back-end “configurator” software has quickly evolved into virtual reality shopping experiences.
- 3D renderings of products that customers can spin and sometimes even interact with by:
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- turning handles
- opening compartments
- activating simulated features in a miniature VR environment
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- See products in a virtual use-case environment
- Change features and components for new configurations
On the other side, customers can use their phones to project a to-scale image of the product into the camera’s view of their home or office. AR shopping is gaining traction as embedded AR tools in mobile websites become more capable and accessible to eCommerce website designers.
With AR, shoppers can:
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- Project products into their environment
- Test colours, fabrics, finishes, and sizes to match their needs
- Combine AR products to create new rooms
- Build a shopping list from a simulated space
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4. Integrated eCommerce and In-Store Experiences
The in-store experience is also growing to include live maps that show customers how to get to the aisle they need, and interactive features designed to work directly with things like QR codes and promotions inside the store.
In-store hybrid experiences include:
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- A live navigation app showing customers where they are and where their desired product is located
- Mobile product data when customers photograph products or scan QR codes in stores
- Customers request human assistance in-store through an app
- Available in-store radio or podcasts
- Adding un-shopped items to a virtual wish list inside the store
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5. Headless eCommerce Architecture
Headless eCommerce architecture considers the more technical side of eCommerce website development. A headless architecture makes it possible to update the back end and front-end of your eCommerce website separately so that changes to one does not disrupt the other. This way, client experiences remain the same even if you make massive changes to the back-end structure or functionality of your eCommerce website engine or resources.
With headless eCommerce, you can:
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- Connect your website, mobile app, and marketplace shops all to the same back-end inventory data
- Run AI analysis and personalization on the backend without affecting front-end performance
- Access the same customer behavior and loyalty data across platforms for a seamless experience
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6. Advanced Personalization
However, some websites are going so far as to change the entire website experience.
Examples of personalization include:
- A website that detects a customer’s favorite colour
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- Present all products in the customer’s favorite colour
- Use this colour in the website’s layout design
- Offer packages in their favorite colour around special occasions
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- Birthday and anniversary deals with all a customer’s favorite things according to your data
- Suggest advanced product suggestions based on customer taste
- Help customers repeat past gifting behaviours (remember birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)
7. eCommerce Chatbots and Conversational Commerce
However, with the growth of conversational AIs, it is now possible to provide a truly conversational, responsive, and helpful chatbot.
These new eCommerce chatbots can:
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- Guide customers to the products they need through descriptive conversations
- Put together suggested products from a list
- Sort results by available sizes, styles, and colours
- Provide polite conversation instead of just robotic results
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Voice Search Enabled
Along the same lines as conversational commerce is the enabling of voice search. eCommerce websites that pair well with smart home systems and hands-free virtual assistants may grow their business by earning purchases through voice commands. The right strategy for voice search integration is still being explored on a broader level, but as the utilization of virtual assistants continues to increase, so too will Commerce integration.
Currently, voice search can:
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- Use a smart home skill with specific integrated voice commands
- Search for answers from internet informational resources
- Play simple games or offer guided conversation experiences
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8. Paying with Digital Wallets
Digital wallets can:
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- Allow customers to check out immediately without pulling out a card
- Interface more effectively with the younger generation
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Take Your Online Retail to the Next Level with Tailbase
Retail is no longer just about display shelves and great products. You also need to provide your customers with a cutting-edge online shopping experience. Discover how with Tailbase and its Shopify integration Tailbasify and book a Tailbase demo.