The eCommerce Industry is experiencing widespread and rising popularity along with forward-looking innovation. Users are inclined toward mobile apps and websites to buy almost everything, from groceries to clothes to whatnot. Out of the entire growth in the retail sector, e-commerce contributes the maximum. In 2021, the industry is expected to reach almost $1.2 billion worldwide. Of course, with such an impressive market share, old and new technologies are sparing no effort to keep pace with changing eCommerce trends and Magento is no exception. It is a widely used and preferred e-commerce platform used by almost every enterprise software development company across the globe. After being acquired by Adobe in 2018, Magento has gone through many changes, getting equipped with advanced and highly-effective features.
The team is preparing for the future now so that Magento can have a massive impact on the eCommerce world in 2021 and beyond. Businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs are looking for reliable Magento development services for further expansion in the online store and gaining a competitive advantage. There are various exciting and key trends awaiting, including intelligent commerce, B2B capabilities, headless commerce, cloud infrastructure improvements along with others. If you own an online store or belong to the eCommerce sector, then you certainly cannot miss the upcoming trends and updates.
Hence, we have listed a few surprises and features that Magento will bring to the e-commerce world in 2021. Have a look:
Headless Commerce
As per Adobe’s digital economy index, smartphones will continue more than 50% of online spending by the year 2022. Therefore, merchants and online retailers must evolve with the trend and change their approach regarding commerce. They must understand that the primary channel for online shopping will not only be the desktop. This is where headless commerce comes into the picture and delivers excellent experiences to customers just as they expect. Trust us, the world will soon be thanking this latest addition which will allow sellers and merchants to shift from monolithic systems to enhanced microservice stacks and headless architecture. This will also ensure constant improvements and efficient launching of front-end experiences, such as PWA or Progressive Web Applications. It will be faster and easier to develop which means better performance of website or app and increased conversion rates. For efficient and powerful e-commerce software solutions, Magento is working on the PWA UI framework and standalone GraphQL to support the front-end experience of users.
Live Streaming
Live streaming has become a head-turner in the social media world. It is the most convenient and hassle-free way to connect with users and customers. However, e-commerce still hasn’t adopted it completely and is trying to incorporate this feature to increase revenue and user engagement. Considering the benefits of audiovisuals on sales and online business, Magento has brought this feature to online businesses. Now, sellers and brands can give a live demo of products via broadcast on the website or any social media platform, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Although the industry was looking forward to making this shift, the COVID-19 crisis pushed it further and encouraged stores to adopt the trend at the earliest to interact with potential buyers. With live videos on the app or website, you can surely drive more traffic as audio-video provides more clarity about products. Real-time communication also gives a sense of involvement to users and they can clear their queries instantly.
B2B eCommerce
Have you ever studied the B2B industry? Being a part of the eCommerce sector and dealing in the online business, you must understand this significant aspect. Take a quick insight into B2B companies and their nature and you will find that merely 16% of them are customer-centric. Yes, only that much, and this is because most of these organizations don’t even try or make an effort to get familiar with their B2B buyers or analyze their preferences. The brands and enterprises from the business-to-business sector must develop a direct-to-consumer channel to gain ownership of customer data and easily access it. This will help them to understand their buyers better and optimize user experience across all the channels. Magento has announced a new PWA feature in 2021 for B2B companies so that they can shift their attention to user-centric rather than product-centric. As most of the time and resources for B2B eCommerce development go into backend integrations and custom services, Magento has decided to collaborate with EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) platform to make the process quicker and easier.
Intelligent Commerce
So, here is a simple and straightforward way to understand intelligent commerce and its role in the buying experience. When you visit an online store and scroll through products, you see recommendations by the app or website and more often than not, you click on that item and mostly add it to your cart. Right? This is what most users do. Therefore, the webinar stated that over 62% of online buyers make their purchase decisions based on recommendations, and leading stores like Amazon spends 25% of their sales on personalized recommendations. All this is done by none other than Artificial Intelligence, a technology that Magento has incorporated into eCommerce stores for sharp product suggestions. With better and reliable algorithms, AI has also evolved and uses computer vision to recommend similar products to users. This is just the tip of the iceberg as Magento is bringing another amazing feature of live search powered by AI. It will be a SaaS-based service with an intuitive search feature to allow merchants to implement their own marketing logic to suggest search items based on visitors’ behavior.
Ethical Trends
Consumers are getting more attentive and serious toward ecological issues and their consumption decisions are also based on the rising concerns. Moreover, with climate strike movements worldwide, even brands are getting attentive and responsible. Buyers and users are continuously putting pressure on the government and several industries to adopt an ethical approach in business. Hence, sustainable solutions were put forward to address issues related to farming practices, waste reduction, CO2 production, plastic packaging, and more. In a recent survey, it was revealed that almost 85% of buyers strongly feel that brands must contribute to enhancing the environment. Magento eCommerce developers are also following the trend and ensuring that consumers can realize the hidden impact of consumerism and eCommerce in general. They are sharing this ethical and corporate responsibility and have added it as a top trend for 2021.
Summing It Up!
After going through these new features and updates introduced by Magento, there is no doubt that this eCommerce platform will continue to grow in the industry. It is constantly working for improved functionality of online stores and businesses, helping them to experience effective digital transformation. Therefore, making it a popular choice for brands. However, it doesn’t mean that Magento will stop evolving, it is still working on a mechanism and features to bridge any gaps and cover patches. So, in the meantime, we all have to wait and watch what more surprises Magento has in store for us.
