Blog

Top 4 E-commerce Trends in 2022

ecommerce trends 2022

Every new year brings excitement and new possibilities, and new year’s also bring new trends to the world of ecommerce. COVID-19 and the scarcity it has brought along with it has had a massive impact on online retailers, and brands need to stay relevant and up to date. We believe that these ecommerce trends will help you keep your foothold on your market in the coming year.

We’ve included our top four ecommerce trends to look for in 2022 below. These are definitely not the only trends to look out for in 2022, but we narrowed our list down to the four we feel will have the biggest impact on online retailers.

Increased AI Use

As an online retailer, you know the value of a personalized experience for your shoppers. In fact, Epsilon research indicates 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when they’re offered a personalized experience. But how do you create that personalized experience? Increasingly, retailers are turning to Artificial intelligence.

AI’s machine learning can do more than any number of human brains could possibly do for your retail website. With its constant collection of data and ability to group that data into meaningful segments, AI gives you what you need to create a more personalized experience for your shoppers.

Whether you’d like to serve up relevant promotions or encourage shoppers to pick up where they left off, or suggest an item that is complementary to one they have in their cart, AI can help provide the necessary data to make those determinations.

Highly Optimized Websites to Maximize Conversions

Just like fashion trends, online shoppers’ buying habits and behaviors change on a regular basis. Therefore, you need to routinely test your retail site to ensure it’s highly optimized to bring in as many conversions as possible.

The easiest way to do this? A/B testing. We’re not saying test out two different colors for an ‘Add to Cart’ button for a week and call it a day. If you really want to stay ahead, you need to be testing out various elements (headlines, font color, font size, button placement, layout, etc.) to find what combinations produce the best results with your shoppers.

There are easy-to-use tools available (Google OptimizeOptimizelyVWO to name just a few) that your team can utilize to start testing out various elements. However, since you don’t want to test multiple elements at the same time (how will you know what actually performed better?) you’ll want to continually test to find the overall best experience for your shoppers.

And then, when you add new features to your site, you’ll want to make sure you test them as well. Maybe you add on the ability to choose from various payment methods, you’ll want to make sure new and returning shoppers are aware of this. Test out where on the page layout you notify shoppers, what the font color is, at what point in the buying journey is it shared with them, etc.

Increase in Mobile Shopping

This has been a trend for the last few years and it isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. According to Statista.com, mobile shoppers accounted for 52.4% of ecommerce sales in 2016. Fast forward to 2021 and mobile shoppers accounted for 72.9% of ecommerce sales.

On one hand, yes, there are more mobile devices in more hands now. Everyone from teens to grandmothers probably owns at least one mobile device. However, in addition to the increase in devices, is the improvement in functionality on mobile devices.

Gone are the days of staring at your phone as the blue bar at the top slowly made its way from left to right as the page loaded (unless you’re in the middle of the desert with no reception). And the designers of mobile devices have done their research to find out what size and design people are most comfortable with and, therefore, more likely to use than their desktop. Not to mention increased consumer confidence regarding buying online as a result of the pandemic.

In order to keep up with the improved functionality of mobile devices, you need to make sure your retail site is mobile responsive. Click here to learn more about responsive web design and how it can affect the perception and performance of your brand.

Multiple Payment Options to Reduce Abandoned Shopping Carts

Have you been tracking your shopping cart abandonment rate? According to Truelist, the global average rate of cart abandonment is 75.6%. We’ll give you a second to read that again.

We would also suggest tracking whether the shopper was on a mobile device or desktop because Truelist also reports the average abandonment rate on mobile phones is even higher at 85.65%. If you’re not already tracking your retail site’s cart abandonment rate it’s time you start.

While these statistics may seem staggering, one of the ecommerce trends we’ll see in 2022 is the increased availability of multiple payment options which can greatly influence your shopping cart abandonment rate. One of the major factors at play in this trend is the age of your audience, something else you should be tracking if you’re not already.

survey by Paysafe found Gen Z shoppers vary their payment options more often than Gen X shoppers. In fact, when comparing each age demographic from Gen Z to Baby Boomers, Gen Z and Millennials were comparable in regards to awareness of alternative payment options. If your retail website caters to a Gen Z or Millennial audience, alternative payment methods may soon become a necessity to compete at all.

The most popular payment methods today are:

  • Google Pay
  • Apple Wallet
  • PayPal
  • Payoneer
  • Credit cards (traditional and contactless)
  • Stripe
  • Cryptocurrencies

While we’re not claiming to be psychics, nor do we have a crystal ball giving us a glimpse of the future, we’re confident these are trends ecommerce brands will be seeing in 2022 and continue to be on the rise in the years to come. No one likes getting left behind, but when it comes to your retail website, you really need to keep up with these ecommerce trends. Because there’s a good chance your competitors will be.

Free Guide: 6 Strategies for Effective Personalization

Learn how to craft an ideal experience for your customers by using AI-powered customer segmentation, algorithmic merchandising, smart promotions, and more.