Future Trends in eCommerce

Sales through the internet, has changed the pre existed business patterns despite the geographical barriers. Whether it is C2C, B2B or B2C, eCommerce is flourishing day by day and gives a promising outlook in the coming years. The eCommerce wave is stronger than when they had started in 1995, gained much base by overcoming the IT downturn in 2000. From mere online travel booking and matrimonial sites, eCommerce has grown tremendously with refined methodologies making eCommerce more and more attractive.

Trends in eCommerce industry are changing and competitors are looking for any method which makes their business more profitable and practical for the consumers. Below listed are the few trends which will dominate the eCommerce industry in 2014


Big Data Analytics

Next time when you take part in a survey and mark your responses, your personal traits may get recorded at the backend, by which the surveyor company can use this data either for their existing promotion or to create a new product. Facebook is an ideal example for Big Data, which could uncover hidden patterns from the timeline posts and identify the status of the relationship.! Netflix and Comcast have entered into a partnership agreement where Netflix subscribers opting for Comcast Internet services gets better quality video.


In eCommerce, the structured data and unstructured data are both taken for increasing conversions. Structured data are mainly with fields of data such as name, address, preferences, gender and age and unstructured data are likes, tweets, clicks, videos etc. Walmart collects more than 2.5 pet bytes of data every hour from its customer transactions. A pet byte is one quadrillion bytes, or equal to 20 million, worth of text. An exabyte is 1,000 times of that, or equal to one billion gigabytes. The data ican be used for pricing, predictive analytics, better customer service, and to manage the supply chain.

Multichannel Shopping

Advanced technology paved the way for multi channel shopping through various devices like, Smart phones, PCs, tablets, laptops and iPad. In India the number of internet users is expected to increase by 300 million, which in turn look very promising for the business. The expected growth in online transaction is 40 million by 2016.


Innovative Customer Service Methods


Most of the e commerce sites are providing 24*7 supports via chat, mail and call; it was not a multi dimensional customer service earlier. COD, a recent technique adopted by the Indian online retailers helped them in getting more returns than the old method of payment at the time of buying. Some eCommerce retailers even give online guidance for the purchase. There will be more deals and offers in the coming days.


New Shipping Solutions


Shipping is critical for any online retailers and they are bringing up innovative ideas to ensure fast delivery. Online retailers like Jabong and Flipkart have their own logistics services that have definitely increased their acceptance. Many local stores are offering next day delivery in the US and UK.


Advertisements Through Mobiles

Mobile advertising shall increase, as the online retailers are spending more on mobile ads. Video ads, SMS are mainly used by large retailers where small retailers stick on to traditional ads. Most online retailers are trying PPC and CPC. Ads are also possible as blogs, tweets and communities.

Personalized Products

In 2014, 3D display of the products shall take over the traditional photo display, through that customers can identify what they exactly want in the product. GiantSlike Nike, BMW's mini cooper has generated business from allowing their customers to design their product online. Online retailers have already plugged into this technology where small retailers may find difficult to get resources to venture into this.

Socially Yours

When Mr. Dave Caroll posted his music video "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube he never thought that his video will ever cause a damage of $180bn to the United Airlines Company. This famous musician from Canada was flying to Nebraska on United Airlines, and was very angry and hurt when the baggage handlers of the airline broke his Taylor Guitar worth $30, 000. His claims for the compensation was rejected by the airline company, stating that his case was not in compliance with the company's compensation policies. The video went viral and after the fourth day around 1.5 million people watched it, 2000 tweets, 777 blogs were based on that incident and 339 online portals reported this incident. The company lost around 10% of its market cap.

The Taylor Guitar Company reaped benefits through this video and they offered props for the next 2 music videos in this series. And that's the power of social media and these days customers are using this platform extensively for discussions.

The customer may not be a true King, but their convenience matters a lot and that's why the banking industry is eagerly adopting the social media platform for better customer services. Banks have become more conversation oriented than being, a pragmatic approach in a highly regulated industry. Are the customers reaping benefit of their banks' Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts and if they do, then how?

Wells Fargo, is on social media since 2006, is the first largest financial institution to use the social media platform. They found it promising and have two Facebook pages, many blogs, and four Twitter accounts and even have a YouTube channel.

Moven Bank, a New York based mobile banking company, they connect with their customers through social media. Moven even has a plug-in to transfer money to their customers Facebook friends! Moven which was listed in the Top ten coolest brands in banking is using the social media successfully than any other financial institution. Their customers can even open an account via their FB page, they are rewarded for their referrals, and for the time spend on Moven's social media page. Moven is planning to charge $5.95 monthly for the debit card use, but those customers who have brought in a referral account will be waived from those fees.

Barclays uses their social media accounts for product promotion, CSR activities, to get feedback, job postings, etc. HSBC has a separate FB page for students where they handle queries from students.

Consumers are willing to spend more on social media to get improved services if, the services are better, then more than 65% of the US customers are ready to give their personal info in social media. Globally, 7 out of 10 customers of the banks are willing to take up the help of virtual technology. Even though data theft is a big threat, consumers are ready to trust their banks for better services. According to a recent Cisco survey, 88% of the bankers believe that customers are ready to reap the benefit of virtual banking, 58% of the bankers believe that they can give more personal services and 63% of consumers are ready to meet a financial advisor online!