Top 10 eCommerce Technology Trends That Will Rule in 2022

The technology and advancement in the eCommerce industry are evolving rapidly. With a sizeable number of consumers now preferring to buy products online, it’s imperative for brands to build an engaging web experience that convinces customers and helps them make thoughtful purchases.

We often come across certain new-age technologies which are now changing the dynamics of eCommerce. Every day, early adopters of such technologies experiment with them and make a case for their application in the industry.

As a result, numerous exciting new eCommerce technology trends continue to emerge in this space. To help you better understand what will form the core foundation of your digital strategy going forward, here are the top e-commerce technology trends that will rule 2022.

Virtual Assistants

The world of eCommerce is moving towards personalization at an exponential rate. With so many customers engaging with brands, it becomes essential for e-commerce businesses to build a more intimate relationship with them by catering to individual needs.

Artificial Intelligence or AI plays an integral role in the personalization process, and it will play a pivotal part in eCommerce. By leveraging AI, brands can use customer data to understand

consumer preferences and buying behaviors better. This way, they will be able to serve their customers better as well.

With technology giants bringing new virtual assistants every other day, the trend will likely continue in 2022. As a result, brands will provide an even more personalized shopping experience across channels, including mobile devices and voice-based search engines with virtual assistants.

Augmented Reality (AR)

As eCommerce evolves towards more immersive experiences with the help of new technologies like AR and AI, we will see a more excellent fusion of the two. This integration will empower brands to change the way they engage with customers and enable them to use technology as a medium for providing more personalized shopping experiences.

One such example is Google’s AR tool, which uses image recognition technology to provide information about objects in real-time. This new technology will likely be used to help customers make more informed purchase decisions.

Another great example is the Airobotics Store platform, which uses robots, virtual reality, and Artificial Intelligence to provide existing customers with information about products on sale. With this system, brand representatives can also use cameras attached to these robots for conducting hands-free video interactions with customers.

Diverse Payment Options

In order to build a thriving business, it is essential for brands to offer all alternative payment methods. This directly impacts their ability to attract a wider audience and make the overall online shopping experience more convenient.

Hence, we will see more e-commerce businesses going beyond traditional payment options such as credit cards and net banking. For instance, brands are now offering potential customers multiple payment options like PayPal, Alipay, Apple Pay, and others, allowing customers to select their preferred options.

Furthermore, digital wallets will become an integral part of the eCommerce industry in the years to come. A report by Transparency Market Research showed the global mobile wallet market has geographically expanded to Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and it keeps on spreading out. The growth of Ewallet technology is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2024. With this growing popularity, digital wallets will likely be preferred over traditional payment methods by 2022.

Advancement in the Field of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing plays a crucial role in improving the scalability, flexibility, and speed of online transactions in the eCommerce industry. Its benefits are no longer limited to B2B operations, but it’s now being used to build innovative solutions, products, and services for B2C operations as well.

For instance, brands like Walmart are leveraging Google Cloud to deliver a more streamlined customer experience across mobile devices. By doing so, they can make the overall online shopping experience convenient for customers. While this eCommerce technology trend is likely to continue in 2022, we can expect even more brands to look towards cloud computing to improve their e-commerce business operations.

Focus On Ecommerce Security

Due to the growing complexity of threats associated with eCommerce transactions, security has become one of the biggest challenges businesses today face.

While some brands are opting for more secure options like 3D Secure (3DS), others are leveraging blockchain technology to strengthen customer authentication.

For instance, PayPal partnered with Visa in 2016 to launch its token service - a new form of payment authentication that uses a digital code instead of a 16-digit card number. This way, customers can make online payments without exposing their card details. This growing awareness will prompt more brands to adopt this technology in the years to come.

Personalized Online Shopping Experience

One of the biggest reasons for the increasing popularity of influencer marketing is that customers today prefer ‘authentic’ recommendations over traditional advertisements. Since these advertisements are usually based on assumptions, influence marketing is more likely to help brands connect with their target audience emotionally.

A prominent example is a collaboration between Amazon and Alibaba, which allows customers to buy products using voice commands. For example, customers can simply say, “Alexa, reorder toothpaste” or “Alibaba, I need shampoo,” without having to type anything in the search bar.

This collaboration is expected to thrive, and it will play a significant role in strengthening the eCommerce industry over the next few years. Brands will also look at innovative strategies like chatbots, which can help them deliver more personalized online shopping experiences.

Rise Of AI-powered eCommerce Solutions

Today, there are various AI-powered solutions that can help brands create more tailored online shopping experiences for customers. From being able to detect fraud transactions to delivering personalized recommendations on product pages, intelligent machines have the ability to streamline almost all operational activities.

As a result of this growing popularity, we will see more and more brands integrating these intelligent machines into their eCommerce business operations in 2022. By doing that, they will be able to deliver highly-personalized shopping experiences to their customers.

Personal Approach to Marketing & Customer Support

As mentioned earlier, brands are looking to adopt a more personal approach when it comes to building better customer relationship management. They want to provide a more human touch to all their digital interactions, which is why they are engaging in effective conversations with customers on social media.

Moreover, it’s becoming increasingly important for brands to deliver prompt customer support whenever required. This will play a major role in facilitating positive online shopping experiences and helping brands retain customers for a longer period of time.

This is where chatbots can come in handy. By automating several customer support operations, businesses today are able to deliver faster resolutions to their client’s queries. This is expected to become a million industry by 2021, and it will help brands strengthen their relationships with customers, especially the millennial segment. With almost half of this generation preferring branded goods, there is a growing demand for companies that offer top-notch customer support.

A Rise In the Number of Subscription Ecommerce Solutions

Ecommerce sales via subscription services surpassed 24 billion dollars in the U.S in 2020, and the experts forecasted that the subscription eCommerce services would soar in 2021 and the following years. The staggering industry growth of the Consumer-Packaged Goods (CPG) market has led to the emergence of several subscription eCommerce platforms, which are exclusively dedicated to serving this niche. As a result, the rise of subscription eCommerce solutions is predicted to be one of the e-commerce trends next year.

For example, a healthy drink company currently offers a monthly subscription package for a variety of healthy drinks. By doing so, it can provide its potential customers with the means to make healthier lifestyle choices on a regular basis. Moreover, it is projected that shoppers will get familiar with and prefer products from brands that offer subscription services in time. And it will be helpful in building customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. This is expected to play a significant role in strengthening the subscription eCommerce industry over the next few years.

The Increase in the Number of Enhanced Website Personalization Solutions

Another crucial eCommerce technology trend that’s currently shaping up the industry is enhanced website personalization. With almost 40% of shoppers leaving e-commerce websites without making any purchases, it’s becoming crucial for online retailers to implement solutions to improve their online conversions.

Nowadays, many personalization tools are available in the market, such as Adobe Target, Google Optimize, Hyperize, etc. They help brands enhance user engagement and significantly increase

their overall sales. From using customer data to making more informed business decisions to personalized product recommendations, enhanced personalization solutions can drive more conversions and customer satisfaction without compromising the customer experience. As a result, ‘personalized branding’ will become a key differentiator for brands in 2022 - resulting in higher conversion rates and better ROIs.

Conclusion

The next few years will surely bring a lot of changes when it comes to eCommerce technology trends. It’s exciting to think about how e-commerce technology is going to evolve in the coming years. However, it is hard to know which e-commerce trends are worth following and investing time in, so we’ve compiled this list of what will likely shape up as some key players for 2022.

With these predictions, we would like you to be prepared for how the eCommerce game may change in the future and be able to stay ahead of the curve.