The past few years have been full of twists and turns for eCommerce, but there are three trends that began in 2022 and seem to be strengthening as we progress through 2023.
M-Commerce
It’s so new, many are unaware of the new term and have not realized that a large portion of the past year’s sales were actually segmented as m-commerce, also known as mobile commerce. According to Investopedia, it involves using wireless handheld devices like cellphones and tablets to conduct commercial transactions online, including the purchase and sale of products, online banking, and paying bills.
With one in five smartphone users spending more than 4.5 hours on average on their phones each day, this segment of eCommerce is expected to continue to grow at rapid rates. In 2021 during the pandemic, m-commerce accumulated more than 54% of all eCommerce sales worldwide and according to Statista, the US reported 72.9% of purchases were made on mobile devices.
Optimizing your e-shop and online advertising strategy for mobile has never been more important as consumers shift more habits and shopping to mobile opportunities.
Marketplaces
As the popularity of shopping at the top eCommerce marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, and Etsy has increased, it has become more critical than ever for suppliers and small business to understand how to successfully meet the requirements of these marketplaces to continue to supply products to their consumers.
It is estimated that marketplaces were approximately 63% of the $4.27 trillion in global eCommerce sales in 2020, when it was still a relatively new concept outside of your typical Amazon and Etsy. As other major retailers joined in to develop the infrastructure to manage and grow their eCommerce marketplace, it is estimated that even with the inflation and consumer spending potentially slowing that 2023 will have an estimated $5.7 trillion in total for eCommerce and the marketplace will be a large portion of this.
Developing consistent processes to regulate inventory across multiple platforms and shipping processes that are up to the consumer standards will continue to increase trust with each of your marketplaces.
Automation
This comes as no surprise as consumers are living more of their lives online and expect products faster and faster, it has never been more critical for success than now to have efficient processes in place to reduce errors across your inventory, fulfillment and shipping. According to Hubspot, 76% of companies today are using some form of automation, while Automizy reports that it’s closer to 85%.
Automation allows your business operations to flow smoothly with drastically fewer errors than if it was conducted manually and allows your eCommerce business to process more orders per day with the same number of people on your team.
Improving processes increases your vendor ranking, which will increase your visibility to consumers because retailers and marketplaces want to know that their suppliers can keep up with the ever-increasing expectations of consumers today.
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As your business looks to be proactive to improve processes in 2023, OPAL is here to partner with you and have you ready for your next season of growth.
To learn more about how your eCommerce business can thrive this new year, click here!