Top Trends in eCommerce That Will Impact Your Business in 2020

With the new year and decade upon us, there’s no better time to take a closer look at how marketing agency trends in e-commerce will affect the way you do business this year.

1. More Competition

With over 24 million eCommerce websites and predictions going as far as saying that the space will generate $4.5 trillion dollars every year from 2020, you can expect new entrepreneurs entering the race.

In terms of immediate consequences, this means more options for customers – likely impacting the industry you’re in. This also means you’ll be fighting with more businesses over getting the attention of prospects, whether that’s on a paid or organic level.

2. Higher Digital Advertising Costs

Take a look at the data from the last 3-5 years and expect more of the same: CPMs on Facebook and CPCs on Google will continue to climb. In ad bidding environments, the more advertisers join the party, the higher you can expect your ads and leads to cost. And with so many direct-to-consumer businesses relying on digital marketing to generate an overwhelming majority of their online sales, expect this trend to continue for a while – at least until an underpriced alternative emerges.

If your ad costs are going to undoubtedly increase, an immediate step you should be taking is finding the right team that can stretch every ad dollar you invest. Evestar managed millions of ad dollars in 2019 and helped scale a multitude of eCommerce businesses. You can read more about this here.

3. The Growing Need for Better Retention

We just touched on it: if acquiring a customer is going to cost more, there’s higher importance for businesses to make sure they come back after that first purchase. It’s no secret that a repeat purchase is very valuable but many online stores overlook the importance of a great purchase and post-purchase experience.

Do customers hear from you after their first purchase? Do you have the right automation in place to nurture your first-time customer relationships? No, we’re not talking about the desperate “please leave a review” as a first post-purchase touchpoint…

Acne-fighting e-commerce giant, Curology, uses customer feedback to drive business, with an entire page on curology.com dedicated to reviews.

So many sides of your business will impact repeat purchases, none more than the experience your customers have with the product or service you offer. So ask yourself what areas you could be improving in 2020 to lift these returning customer rates. This one is important, not only as a trend in eCommerce this year, but many more to come.

4. More Reliance on AI and Personalization

With a deeper understanding of customer habits, AI and machine learning will continue to push its presence in the eCommerce world. From recommending products based on previous purchases to predicting the day a customer will place their next order, trusting algorithms could pay off big.

Searching for the right Shopify Add-Ons and leveraging powerful features from Klaviyo are good places to get started on this end.

5. Faster Fulfillment and Shipping Expectations

It’s no secret that shoppers want their purchases ASAP. Blame Amazon for their expectation that two-day or even same-day shipping is the norm. If your business still takes 2-3 days to process the order and charges an arm for overnight shipping, you may push first-time shoppers away, or worse, have them complain publicly about how it took forever to receive their order.

Amazon’s faster-than-light speedy delivery service has completely skewed our expectations for e-commerce fulfillment.

There’s a reason Shopify is heavily investing in fulfillment and helping business owners send packages to customers in an affordable and simpler way. This is one of many steps the company is taking to offer their merchants a true end to end customer experience. As a Shopify agency, we’re excited to see what this next chapter for fulfillment means for small business owners.

However, following these top trends in eCommerce is easier said than done. Need help reaching your goals in 2020? Evestar scales eCommerce businesses 10x, focusing on overall growth strategies, digital marketing campaigns, email marketing, influencer marketing, conversion rate optimization (CRO) and branding.

Founded by a billion-dollar entrepreneur and agency of record for many eCommerce companies, Evestar continues to excel in helping brands around the world maximize their revenue.

If you’d like to connect and hear more about how we can help you, schedule a no-strings-attached intro call.