2017 has officially begun and you should have wrapped up your New Year Sale by now. But you have very little time to rest because you need to be ready for what 2017 brings for ecommerce. We've highlighted some trends that are going to take the ecommerce world by storm in 2017.
Here's what to watch out for.
1) A Switch to M-commerce. Shopping on the mobile
Online shopping will definitely be more mobile driven this year. So you will fall back if you don't consider setting aside a budget for a mobile app for your store. Of course, the success of mobile apps depend on the kind of goods you sell and your audience behaviour, and you will need to check if it is a good investment.
- At some point, you will need to consider making your store not just mobile friendly, but building a special store for mobiles. 65% customer shop on their mobiles as of now and that percentage is definitely going to increase in 2017. A mobile app for your store is not something you can choose to ignore.
- J2Store brings to you the mobile app builder that helps you create a mobile app for your ecommerce store in a few minutes. You can easily integrate payment services for secure payments, upload your products and create attractive mobile product pages.
Check out what J2Store's mobile app builder can do for you / Check out a demo store with the mobile app.
2) More payment methods and through local payment services.
With the kind of cutting competition ecommerce store everywhere will face, you have to stay a neck above the rest. Customers have already begun looking for ecommerce stores that give them a tailored experience. For eg. If a customer from Sweden is at a Forever 21 online store, they will want to pay in Krona. So allowing them to view products with a price tag in their currency, is an example of being user-friendly.
- J2Store gives you a neat feature that lets you sell in multiple currencies on your store. You can set the default currency of your ecommerce store as well. When a customer wants to view products with their prices in a particular currency, he can choose the currency options on your store easily. See how to do this.
You should also check out our payment plugin section to find the most popular payment plugin around the globe. You'll find loads of local payment plugins for different countries you can set up in your store.
3) Easier return policies. They WILL affect your sales.
WSJ predicts that product returns will increase by 33% this year. So it makes sense to see if your return policy is both beneficial to you and your customers. Amend your policy to make returns easier. This might seem counter-intuitive, but when your return policies are simpler, customers tend to become more loyal buyers.
You should check out this post on “How to frame an effective return policy for your ecommerce store.” Follow these simple guidelines to create a return policy that has clear-cut benefits.
4) Delivering a more personalised shopping experience
You'll need to dig into Analytics more to study customer behaviour on your store. Customers like an experience that specially caters to their needs. You need to resort cross-selling your products to improve your sales. Let's say a customer buys a dress, you should recommend complimentary shoes and jewellery to go with it. A lot of big brand websites have implemented this completely.
- J2Store introduces the new Enhanced Google Analytics App so you can study user behaviour on your website better.You can cross-sell, down sell, upsell products easily on your Joomla ecommerce site. You can set up a section on your product page for recommended products based on what customer have viewed earlier.
Read: How To Create Stellar Product Pages For Your Ecommerce Website.
5) Social Media Focussed Selling
Another thing to get into is promoting your products on social media to better your sales. Now, this not exactly a 2017 trend as it has been trending for a really long time now. But you'll be surprised to see how many people don't really leverage all the benefits social networking platforms have to offer.
And promotions on social media don't have to be limited to Facebook or Twitter. You should try more new age platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to get your target audience interested in your products. (Read: How to Use Instagram In Marketing)
- J2store gives you the Social Share app for free. This is a great way to get customers to do the social promotion for you. They can share products they love on different social platforms and become your brand ambassadors on social networks.
So are you ready to revamp your ecommerce store to stay in tune with the competition? Click the links we've given you and you can get started easily.
