The eCommerce industry, booming for several years now, has witnessed a sudden spike in growth and revenue due to the pandemic. With millions of customers across the world continuing to turn to digital channels to make purchases, the eCommerce boom is massive. According to a report by Forbes, the global eCommerce market will expand to the tune of $1 trillion by 2025. But in today’s digital era, traditional eCommerce strategies are no longer sufficient to keep up with the pace of change.
What organizations need is to shift their focus away from simple eCommerce to digital commerce and automate every aspect of the commerce experience: right from marketing and sales to product delivery and management.
So, what exactly is digital commerce? Is digital commerce the same as eCommerce? And what changes are expected in the digital commerce world in 2022? Let’s find out!
What is Digital Commerce?
When it comes to defining digital commerce, it’s not unusual to confuse digital commerce with eCommerce. Although they both deal with the selling of goods and services online, they aren’t exactly identical. Gartner defines digital commerce as “the people, processes and technologies to execute the development of content, analytics, promotion, pricing, customer acquisition, and retention, and customer experience at all touchpoints throughout the customer buying journey”.
So, why, or how is digital commerce important? By offering a host of digital channels such as the Internet, mobile, and other commerce infrastructure, digital commerce services enable customers to purchase goods and services through an interactive and self-service experience. It encompasses an integrated set of personalized digital experiences, across the purchasing journey – from customer acquisition through retention – optimized to keep pace with the changes in customer behaviors and expectations.
Digital commerce changes expected in 2022
The increasing prevalence of technology and connectivity in the daily lives of consumers has caused a steep rise in the prevalence of digital commerce. Using modern content management strategies, data analytics advancements, and user experience innovations, digital commerce paves the way for the quicker roll-out of the features and capabilities customers desire, driving better engagement and retention as well as optimized customer experiences at every touchpoint along the buyer’s journey.
Let’s look at the top 7 digital commerce trends expected to dominate in 2022:
- Hyper-personalization: One of the biggest digital commerce trends to dominate in 2022 is hyper-personalization for customers who expect tailored products and marketing messages. Hyper-personalization uses analytics, AI, and automation to send highly contextualized communications to customers – from customized advertising to unique landing pages, dynamic pricing, personalized recommendations, and more. It will enable organizations to meaningfully engage with customers, strengthen existing relationships (and build new ones), and boost the overall customer experience – regardless of the channel they are on, the device they use, and their stage in the purchasing journey.
- Headless commerce: A front-end experience that is decoupled from backend infrastructure will also become a popular trend for digital commerce companies to adopt in 2022. By separating digital storefronts from the systems and engines that power them, businesses will be able to drive better outcomes from their content management and SEO efforts as well as enable quicker integrations, better personalization, and faster time-to-market – all while delivering a consistent yet gratifying customer experience across multiple channels.
- Mobile-first designs: With the massive growth in mobile shopping, 2022 will also see digital commerce platforms being built using cutting-edge, mobile-first designs. Instead of building commerce sites for the desktop and then optimizing them for mobile devices, these mobile-first platforms will be designed for the mobile – allowing for better functionality and navigation, user-friendly browsing, and seamless payments. Since all the initial designing and prototyping is based on mobile functionality first, organizations will be able to deliver higher quality user experiences to mobile users than have formerly been available.
- Innovative payment options: In the realm of digital commerce, as customers increasingly expect better convenience, the coming year will also see organizations offer an array of innovative payment options and frictionless payment experiences. In addition to card payments and digital wallets, in 2022, options like buy now pay later, voice-activated payments, and payment via cryptocurrencies will emerge – paving the way for efficient, effortless, and secure payment experiences.
- New fulfillment strategies: In addition to innovative payment options, another major change we expect to see in the digital commerce world in 2022 is the development of new fulfillment strategies. From Buy Online Pick up in Store to Ship/Fulfill from store and online to offline services – as the repercussions of the pandemic continue to impact how customers shop, these new strategies will become integral parts of the digital commerce services offered in 2022.
- Advanced analytics: Although digital marketing companies have been relying on several forms of analytics to drive better results from their digital commerce efforts, in 2022, they will be found gathering more data points – to further improve their understanding of trends, shifts in consumer behaviors, and changes in shopping patterns. Applying advanced analytics techniques across each consumer journey will enable organizations to make more accurate and timely data-driven decisions that will eventually drive more online sales.
- AI-based automation: Digital commerce companies will also increasingly rely on AI-based automation across their business: right from the automation of back-office operations to AI-enabled recommendations and personalized shopping experiences. Brands will also advance the capabilities of chatbots and voice shopping that enable customers to shop for their favorite brands more conveniently – using their smart devices.
In today’s hyper-competitive eCommerce landscape, just having a huge portfolio of products and services is not sufficient for customer satisfaction and retention. Companies need to account for every tiny element of purchase journeys: from creating fruitful consumer journeys to providing seamless experiences via content marketing, rich product descriptions, social media engagement, user experience mapping, and more. Staying abreast with the latest digital developments is the only way digital commerce and e-commerce companies can drive exceptional results and revenue.
