Forecasting the Revolutionary Trends for Online Retail in 2023

Shopping is easily one of our best hobbies. Be it essentials or luxury, everyone shops and it is an undeniably huge business. When internet and mobile technology was booming, it was evident who was going to be the biggest beneficiary of it. It will be a bit unfair to say that tech companies just built websites and got billions pouring in. It took them years of diligence and getting everyone under the same umbrella to merge technology into retail.

The world shopped worth over $5.7 trillion in 2022 alone. These numbers are expected to rise at double digits for over the next few years as well. What is it that makes eCommerce the biggest beneficiary of the internet? It has come to a point where the power has shifted to e-commerce in the sense that it is eCommerce that runs the technologies and not the other way around. 

Why is Technology & Retail a Perfect Marriage?

Adding technology and connectivity to the retail ecosystem helps bring many stakeholders on the same platform. With that, a lot of constraints that helped a few and acted as a huge block for end consumers are resolved for good. Online retail has ended a lot of middle layers and it’s the end consumer who has emerged as the real hero.

Here is how retail and technology become a match made in heaven.

Convenience 

The biggest benefit of them all is the sheer convenience you get to make ordinary purchases. In the pre-tech era, you had to go to the stores to buy the smallest of the groceries and staples. All of that is now possible with a few taps on a device on your couch. The same goes for buying clothes, medicines, furniture and much more.

Products

Back in the days you had to make the purchase based on what you had in front of you. This meant that getting a quality product depended on the whole supply chain system and availability at a store in your town. With technology and diligence, all the leading products in the world are delivered at your doorstep without anyone having to stock them.

Cost

Since the whole supply chain and stock availability phenomenon is challenged, nobody holds a strong monopoly over the prices of those products. Every seller is there on the platforms and the platforms themselves cut down on their margins to offer further discounts on the products. This means that you as a consumer get the best prices for all your favorite products. 

Many platforms over the years have made the most of the aforementioned factors and built mammoth businesses. With fierce competition, every platform wants to offer more than the rivals. Is it even possible technologically for ecommerce web development to top the peak of ecommerce in terms of technological solutions? 

Tech Solutions for Online Retail in 2023

It is very difficult to take something forward that is already nearing its peak. Not too long ago, the whole game revolved around just the user experience of a website or an app. The look and feel of a platform is barely a criterion for users while making the purchase.

Much of the ecommerce is influenced by social media. With user data tracking policies getting stricter every year, it is going to be very difficult for online retailers to do the analytics. All the data science apart, there are some genuinely interesting and effective trends or solutions that can take the game to the next level.

Every evolution is going to come up with its own set of challenges along the way. So here are some possible areas that may get more attention in 2023 than what they did in the last few years combined, along with the challenges they might face as well.

QR Codes

QR codes are a great way for users to directly access details about their favorite products. Experts believe QR codes are going to replace links soon at least on mobile devices. This means you’ll soon share the QR codes of anything you want to share to your friends over social media or instant messaging. 

Many products have QR codes attached to their product description. These codes work similarly to the programming codes used in technologies like PHP web development. Opening this code leads you to the product’s description page where every detail from manufacturing or packaging facility, batch number or technical specification is elaborated. 

Many brands like to navigate their users to their home pages upon scanning those QR codes. This is also a very effective way to bring people closer to your brand. Another very popular practice is to attach QR codes of contests or offers on the product. Apart from brand awareness, it also creates genuine offline engagement and helps you attain critical user data through a promotional activity.

Challenge: The trick here is that the concept of scanning codes through a mobile phone is still quite fresh. Not everyone is well equipped with it and the initial response can be lukewarm. Another challenge is that these codes need to be updated every time there is a technical glitch or a change in the digital location of the information i.e. the web page. The changes have to reflect on every platform where the product is listed.

Real Time Tracking

Tracking as a concept has evolved over the last few years on online stores. We had the standard 2 or 3 step tracking system back in the days. Instead we now have rather detailed tracking information available in real time. This adds a lot of transparency to the platform’s overall image.

Multi-step tracking also helps platforms create a different layer of engagement with the users. With every notification about the tracking, you are sending a genuine piece of information to the user that directly concerns them and does not seem like spamming. 

This will surely require more diligence and communication. But careful execution from all stakeholders will offer greatly detailed tracking information to the users which along with the fast pace deliveries can create an environment of intrigue and excitement. No matter how much you shop, realizing that your order is a step closer to the delivery through a notification will bring a smile to your face.

Challenge: Tracking is a facility completely outsourced by ecommerce platforms. None of the information is owned or accessed by them. It is strictly between the consumer and the shipping company. To offer detailed information in real time to the users, platforms will have to pay a little more to the shipping company. Also the back and forth that it will require to put up relevant real time information will be massive to execute. 

Social Media 

Social media in the beginning was the best friend for online retail. Online retail was also the driving force in the revenue streams of social media platforms. The whole point of data tracking on social media is to offer relevant shopping ads to the users and make money from the sales. 

Data tracking is going to be even more difficult in 2023. Users are going to have the final say about up to what extent they want to share their usage statistics. This means online retail has to come up with fancier ways to use social media to their advantage. However, it is still possible through WordPress development to integrate social media sharing buttons and other types of interconnectivity for social media as WordPress has a range of plugins to do that.A popular method these days is to display a product listing as a sponsored post or an ad on the users’ timelines. This ad post contains product lists with their brief description and their accurate prices as well. All users have to do is to press “shop now” and they will be navigated to the checkout page. This is a great way to leverage the massive user base of these social media platforms.

It acts as a win-win situation for everyone associated with it. Users no longer have to browse for hours about their favorite products despite spotting them in an ad somewhere. Platforms also no longer have to switch between apps or go through a longer funnel. It is as easy as scrolling through the timeline and making a couple of taps on an ad to make the purchase. 

Challenge: The existing social media team will have an excessive amount of work in designing the ad posts containing products and their current prices. Since the prices vary frequently, there will be lots of changes and updates in these ad posts. Also, the social media platforms will demand a sizable chunk in commissions if the sales go through. So it may be great for your business and overall revenues but selling products through social media may not result in any profits at all for online store owners.  

Pay Later

Almost all leading platforms have a huge cash flow going on. Most of them have bank credit cards and monthly installments set up with their backend. The pay later concept is a classic trick to let users enjoy their shopping without having to instantly pay for it.

Furthermore, the amounts are broken into even installments with no additional cost for a specific time period. This broadens the user base and adds another layer of revenue for the platforms. Users too can avail their favorite products on a buy now pay later mode that they can manage either after a defined credit period or on an easy installment without attaching their credit card or bank details to it.

E-wallets come handy in executing this task. To make the payments for the said installments, users can load money into the wallets of these platforms using any payment method. Offering easy installments or credit periods directly to the users without any intervention of banks is a great way to cut down on bank charges and still build on a user base that likes the concept of credit.

Challenge: There is huge risk involved in allowing anonymous users the credit. All platforms can verify is a list of mobile numbers and email IDs. The addresses may or may not help in case of recoveries. There are chances of frauds as they are for any credit facility provider. The only thing is that there won’t be enough information available about the users which credit cards do. Another challenge will be to bear the insurance costs for these credit purchases since it’ll be mandatory to have insurance in most countries if a platform wants to offer purchases on credit or installments.  

Content & Affiliates 

You can create all the social media content you want but it is still the written content in the form of blogs and articles that drives traffic on the websites. In the case of mobile phones, it is the shortest form of written content – notifications. 

As iterated earlier, data tracking is going to become increasingly difficult going forward. The only sustainable alternative to it is to offer lucrative incentives to people who market your product in an editorial manner. This phenomenon is known as affiliate marketing where users list out products in the form of a review or listing to make it look like an organic or regular blog post or a social media post. 

Links are then attached to these posts and with every purchase made through these links the one who posted the link gets a sizable incentive which is up to 10% of the purchase. This ecosystem inspires bloggers and social media influencers to post about products on your platform in a creative way and helps you build natural engagement. 

Challenge: There will be a lot of backlinks to your product page which is both good and bad. It is good if the source of the backlink is an organic one. A lot of marketers use spamming techniques which makes their websites a spam of a source. This works against the algorithms and results in a lower search index. Also a huge number of backlinks will require stronger servers to facilitate larger irrelevant traffic. The commission rates also have to be consistent over a long period of time for people to genuinely stay interested in marketing your products. 

Conclusion

Technology is deeply impacting our decision making. The only alarming part is the manipulation of user analytics. Barring that part, everything else works in favor of the end user. With newer trends and technologies, it even gets better for the consumer. A lot of emphasis for these new tools is on making the overall process of purchase pleasant and transparent. Be it intuitive ways of putting across reviews or product information or availing the real time tracking information, everything adds up to the experience. With the revenue streams expanding and the margins shrinking, it will indeed be very interesting to see how online retailers keep the bandwagon going.

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Nandan Goda

My name is Nandan, the Owner at Gtech Web Infotech Pvt. Ltd.. I’m also a designer and developer. I’ve been working in the web development field for last 12+ years. Developing and implementing small to large-scale projects and everything in between. Currently working on a lot of CMS, dev-tooling projects. Furthermore focusing on combining Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with emerging technologies.