If you own and operate your own ecommerce store, or are considering starting your own, then you’re probably well aware of how important it is to stay up to date with online shopping trends. Understanding consumer behavior and expectations is key to making your site accessible, user-friendly, and profitable.

With ecommerce trends in constant flux, there is a lot to consider to keep your site on its A game. So how can you stay ahead of the curve? While it’s impossible to create the perfect shopping experience, you can make gradual changes to improve your site so that it better suits your audience. This takes time and a lot of testing, but that’s what it takes to make an enjoyable online shopping experience.

For instance, studies show that the average ecommerce site can increase conversions 35.26% just by improving its checkout design. While this doesn’t mean that your checkout is badly designed, it wouldn’t hurt to look into your checkout process to see how you could tailor it more to your target audience. Perhaps being upfront with shipping costs and avoiding additional fees could improve your conversions, or simply rethinking the process so its more intuitive will do the trick.

Whatever the case may be, reading up on ecommerce stats can educate you about current consumer behaviors so that you know what to look out for. So what areas of ecommerce are top of mind for businesses and consumers alike?

Here are a few to consider:

• Voice search: More and more consumers are using smart home devices. You can max out the opportunity by optimizing your product descriptions and specific web pages (like your FAQ page) for voice search.
• Mobile vs. desktop: Optimizing your site for mobile is crucial, especially since Google has begun to unfurl its mobile-first indexing policy. A mobile optimized site has SEO benefits and will also please the 65% of consumers that use their smartphones to make online purchases.
• Social media:  Social media interaction is huge. Users want to interact with your brand online, and social a natural setting for that kind of engagement. 84% of online shoppers review a brand’s social media page before making a purchase, so why not allocate part of your budget for social media posts or ad spend?
• Better customer experience: Users love a personalized experience. Anytime you can make purchasing and obtaining merchandise less difficult, do so. For instance, 77% of online consumers claim that convenience is the main reason they shop online, so why not go out of your way to make their experience as enjoyable as possible?
• Video: Users love to interact with a product before they buy it. How does a product look from a different angle? What does it look like in action? Video is a great way to provide this experience for users, and it will reduce returns and bad reviews in the future.

Obviously, it’s overwhelming once you start looking at all the ways you could improve your site, and maybe you don’t need to address each area immediately (for example, omnichannel shopping experiences don’t apply to you if you strictly run an online store). That’s why it’s important to learn more about your target audience and their online shopping preferences.

Ecommerce Guest Post Author Bio

Luke Fernandez runs Growth at Wikibuy, a consumer product that helps shoppers know when, where, and what to buy. As a Product and Growth leader, Luke has helped Fortune 500 companies and startups alike drive best-in-class marketing through technology and data.

 

To learn more about shopping stats and how they can help your site improve, check out the infographic provided by Wikibuy below: