Our ecommerce predictions for 2021
From day to day life, to businesses big and small, there is very little that Covid-19 has not had an effect on. Particularly, ecommerce sales have seen record growth, which makes having a strong overall digital presence even more important than before. Learn more about a few of our key predictions for ecommerce in 2021.
- 6. October 2022
Our ecommerce predictions for 2021
The growth in ecommerce in 2020 has been astonishing. Fueled by Covid-19 and the closure of many brick and mortar retail stores, ecommerce sales have skyrocketed to a level that was expected to take ten years to unfold! However, we do not expect the increase in ecommerce to end when the pandemic (hopefully) ends in 2021. Shopping online has become an inherent part of everyday life and we will see this continue in the coming year. Digital shopping is no longer icing on the cake. It is the cake.
More than ever, businesses are understanding that digital commerce is no longer just a sales channel, but the heart and soul of their business model in the digital age. A new report from Mckinsey highlights that a large portion of shoppers are currently up for grabs. In fact, during Covid-19, 75% of U.S. consumers have tried shopping at new retailers. Simply, their loyalty is decreasing and they are opting for the businesses with the strongest digital presence and the best user experience. This emphasizes how important it is to be present and relevant in the digital arena if you want to grow your business in the years to come. This blog post covers four predictions for ecommerce trends that leading brands will adopt in 2021.
Microservice based ecommerce setups will be mainstream
During the last five to ten years, the norm of setting up new enterprise ecommerce systems has been to commit to a particular platform and build as much into it as possible. For many businesses, this has led to highly coupled setups that are difficult to maintain and slow to carry out new innovations due to the complexity of the system.
Now, a new approach is winning where ecommerce architecture is orchestrated through a series of microservices. These are individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed, deployed, and managed. In this approach, all functionality is exposed through an API which enables developers to quickly innovate around the front-end experience, no matter if the end goal is a web solution, an app, or an in-store screen. The advantages of this approach are numerous. Classic enterprise ecommerce suites in 2021 will no longer be seen as the “safer choice”. Microservice-based ecommerce setups allow companies to innovate faster and produce better customer experiences than companies stuck on monolithic setups. For more info on this trend, we, at Adapt Agency, recommend following https://machalliance.org/ for updates and inspiration.
Message-based ecommerce as a channel
In 2021, ecommerce businesses will pay more attention to finding ways to sell and market through popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Consumers are still asking for even more frictionless ways to shop. With the rise of technologies like IA and “conversational commerce”, it is possible to create a very seamless purchasing experience with the help of message-based apps.
For example, China is, no doubt, years ahead of the western market in terms of ecommerce. The whole process, all the way from discovering a new product, buying and getting it delivered, to telling your friends about it, takes place in one app without a classic webshop ever being visited. I believe this trend will also become more prominent in the western world and will be an important battleground for ecommerce business in 2021 with Facebook Messenger as the most obvious step in the short term.
CRM and ecommerce teams will make the magic happen
2021 will be the year when cookie-based tracking gets severely weakened. RIP cookies, you did a great job, but your time has come! For many ecommerce businesses, this is a hard blow since advertisement cookies are used both to retarget and find new prospects. However, in 2021, there will be no other way aside from adopting solutions that are both compliant with IOS and end-user privacy needs. For the end-user, this is actually pretty good news as there will be a much larger focus on uniting a great customer experience and respecting user privacy. The question many ecommerce businesses have on their mind is how to track and attribute digital marketing campaigns in a world without third-party tracking cookies. In our opinion, the way forward is to invest in taking ownership of first-party data by combining CRM methodologies with ecommerce marketing. We anticipate a lot more CRM and ecommerce implementations under a shared strategy in 2021. This approach will most likely be the leading way for companies to capture user data across devices and secure relevant marketing messages and promotions. One of the important themes within this movement is the rise of the Customer Data Platform. This unifies and consolidates customer data from various sources such as CRM, in-store devices, website, email marketing platform, and apps, allowing marketers to activate relevant automated flows across channels.
Microservice based ecommerce setups will be mainstream
During the last five to ten years, the norm of setting up new enterprise ecommerce systems has been to commit to a particular platform and build as much into it as possible. For many businesses, this has led to highly coupled setups that are difficult to maintain and slow to carry out new innovations due to the complexity of the system.
Now, a new approach is winning where ecommerce architecture is orchestrated through a series of microservices. These are individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed, deployed, and managed. In this approach, all functionality is exposed through an API which enables developers to quickly innovate around the front-end experience, no matter if the end goal is a web solution, an app, or an in-store screen. The advantages of this approach are numerous. Classic enterprise ecommerce suites in 2021 will no longer be seen as the “safer choice”. Microservice-based ecommerce setups allow companies to innovate faster and produce better customer experiences than companies stuck on monolithic setups. For more info on this trend, we, at Adapt Agency, recommend following https://machalliance.org/ for updates and inspiration.
Message-based ecommerce as a channel
In 2021, ecommerce businesses will pay more attention to finding ways to sell and market through popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Consumers are still asking for even more frictionless ways to shop. With the rise of technologies like IA and “conversational commerce”, it is possible to create a very seamless purchasing experience with the help of message-based apps.
For example, China is, no doubt, years ahead of the western market in terms of ecommerce. The whole process, all the way from discovering a new product, buying and getting it delivered, to telling your friends about it, takes place in one app without a classic webshop ever being visited. I believe this trend will also become more prominent in the western world and will be an important battleground for ecommerce business in 2021 with Facebook Messenger as the most obvious step in the short term.
CRM and ecommerce teams will make the magic happen
2021 will be the year when cookie-based tracking gets severely weakened. RIP cookies, you did a great job, but your time has come! For many ecommerce businesses, this is a hard blow since advertisement cookies are used both to retarget and find new prospects. However, in 2021, there will be no other way aside from adopting solutions that are both compliant with IOS and end-user privacy needs. For the end-user, this is actually pretty good news as there will be a much larger focus on uniting a great customer experience and respecting user privacy. The question many ecommerce businesses have on their mind is how to track and attribute digital marketing campaigns in a world without third-party tracking cookies. In our opinion, the way forward is to invest in taking ownership of first-party data by combining CRM methodologies with ecommerce marketing. We anticipate a lot more CRM and ecommerce implementations under a shared strategy in 2021. This approach will most likely be the leading way for companies to capture user data across devices and secure relevant marketing messages and promotions. One of the important themes within this movement is the rise of the Customer Data Platform. This unifies and consolidates customer data from various sources such as CRM, in-store devices, website, email marketing platform, and apps, allowing marketers to activate relevant automated flows across channels.
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