eCommerce has changed the business scenario worldwide, with sellers showcasing their products online rather than in brick-and-mortar stores. Therefore, there is a growing need to hire eCommerce developers to develop an eCommerce store that perfectly blends rich user experience and functionality. Currently, several eCommerce platforms empower you to build your online store. However, Shopify has turned out to be one of the best for eCommerce entrepreneurs.
Shopify is a robust eCommerce platform. It is used to build and operate online stores, including modules for inventory management, payments, orders, etc.
- According to a Statista report, Shopify has around 11% share of the global eCommerce market.
- As of the first three quarters of 2022, Shopify generated $1.4 billion US dollars in revenue.
- There are 100+ highly responsive free and premium themes in Shopify’s theme store.
- 1.75 million global businesses are on Shopify. (Shopify Unite)
- Shopify is the most emerging eCommerce platform available, constantly innovating and updating its features.
There are some crucial advantages of using Shopify to set up the website for your eCommerce business. Here, in this article, you will get to know the year’s top eCommerce trends that further encourage the use of Shopify for web development purposes. We’ll examine why Shopify is an excellent choice for your business and why implementing the latest eCommerce trends can help you optimize your eCommerce strategy.
Reasons Why Shopify is a Great Choice to Start Your Online Store
1- Fully-hosted
The eCommerce development platform Shopify is fully hosted. It takes care of the hosting requirements as well as the platform’s software maintenance and updates. You may therefore continue to concentrate completely on your business while Shopify deals with maintaining your website, even when it receives high traffic.
2- Easy to Use
Shopify is a user-friendly and easy-to-use platform for entrepreneurs in the eCommerce world. It provides a smooth interface, templates, and theme options that you can use to customize your website. One can seamlessly add products, keep a note of the inventory, and take customer orders. It also includes a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to customize the look of your site without any coding knowledge.
3- Seamless Product Listing
Shopify allows a fast and easy product listing process. Product information fields are large enough to accommodate a variety of colors, sizes, and images. Additionally, it involves modules for tracking inventory, and you can also integrate calculators to help the user determine the cost of shipping.
4- Excellent Customer Support
Shopify provides continuous customer support so you can get help with website development when needed. You can contact them via phone, email, or live chat if there’s an issue with your store, and they will work to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. They also have an online library of articles and tutorials that can answer your questions.
5- Secure and Reliable Features
For eCommerce businesses, Shopify is one of the most secure and reliable platforms. It is hosted on high-performance servers in data centers worldwide, so your store will stay up and running, and you won’t lose sales due to hosting issues. Also, Shopify provides a secure checkout process that encrypts customer information and protects it from hackers.
6- Third-Party Integration
With the help of the third-party integration functionality, you can connect your Shopify stores to certain third-party APIs. Many companies build custom integrations (available for free and in paid versions) that you can use to improve the functional capability of your website.
7- Powerful Marketing Tools
As a feature-rich platform, Shopify offers many marketing opportunities. The basic version offers SEO features along with advanced eCommerce analytics. The access to advanced tools increases as you choose higher subscription models. It provides various marketing tools and benefits, including discount coupons, gift cards, targeted email marketing, and much more.
eCommerce Development Trends to Follow
Undoubtedly, eCommerce is an industry that’s rapidly changing. With each passing year, trends are constantly shifting in an attempt to shape the way people across the globe purchase products. This makes the future of eCommerce exciting and even creates multiple opportunities for online sellers due to the growing digitization and shifting focus of people towards online shopping experience.
Now, let’s understand the latest eCommerce trends.
Chatbots
Chatbots have been around in recent years and are constantly evolving, especially for eCommerce. This is ideal for businesses that operate in many countries but need more resources to be online to resolve customers’ queries 24/7. It has been analyzed that 80% of customers had a conversation with a chatbot and believe that chatbots are beneficial, as the 24/7 service they offer makes businesses more reliable and efficient. AI and chatbots have taken off in the past few years, but to improve customer experience, this trend will continue to surge in the coming years.
Headless Commerce
Headless commerce is becoming an increasingly attractive configuration for brands. Wondering why? Well, the “headless” refers to a commerce store where the front end and back end are independent. All of Shopify’s backend services remain intact if you choose to go headless with the platform. You have total control over your Shopify store’s front end at the same time. Headless stores will reduce the strain on your current store’s resources and offer a quicker, more seamless experience for users. You may reach touch points along the client experience with Headless’ fully customized approach.
Mobile Web Design
You should always focus on mobile design when it comes to developing an eCommerce store since so many consumers across the globe use mobile devices when shopping online. Streamline the design of your homepage for mobile devices for a simple and seamless customer experience. Make sure all your pages are responsive. You can also utilize drop-down menus, reduce the number of page elements, include a “Back to Top” button, and include mobile animation, a branded welcome screen, and a unique mobile menu.
Photorealistic 3D Models
Creating visually appealing images of your products and services is one of the most critical aspects of building an eCommerce store. Online sellers usually create 360-degree product images and videos to increase engagement on their listings. However, now you can create photo-realistic 3D product models and let your target consumers experience the product even better.
Create Live Shopping Experiences
You always want to give potential customers the ability to experience your products and services naturally, even if they are buying from the comfort of their homes. Live shopping takes this feature one step forward while borrowing from the age-old concept of home shopping channels. Live shopping allows sellers to represent their products on a live stream while simultaneously allowing customers to purchase those products in real-time. This feature allows a highly engaging experience and goes beyond clicking and adding to a shopping cart, thus increasing conversion capabilities.
Social Commerce
Leveraging social media in any online sales strategy is an effective way to build strong relationships with customers and boost brand credibility. Customers now frequently discover, investigate, and buy things on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. Also, as the worldwide social commerce market grows faster toward an anticipated value of $2.9 trillion by 2026, according to projections by Research and Markets, the emphasis on connecting Shopify with social media is set to grow. It makes shopping more convenient and helpful in providing an interactive shopping experience to visitors.
Integrate Products with Shoppable Videos
Integrating the products with videos is an effective way to reach more customers. Calls to action and action buttons are incorporated within shoppable video ads. Moreover, these buttons can be linked to a landing page, a product page, or your eCommerce website. Some buttons can also be used to add items to a shopping basket, speeding up the checkout process even more. Additionally, by including video reviews and testimonials on your website, user-generated content will be added, which will appeal to potential clients. Future developments will make this feature even more noticeable.
Wrapping Up
A lot of big things are expected to change in the eCommerce market over the coming years. If you are planning to build an online store, Shopify emerges as one of the best choices for eCommerce store development due to its state-of-the-art eCommerce features and benefits. Also, the eCommerce trends mentioned here will help you decide where to focus your attention and invest in the future year. Even if you already own an online store, integrating these trends directly enhances its functionality and provides a better user experience to your customers.
However, it is important to understand that implementing some of these trends will require expert assistance. For instance, creating a 3D model of a product will require a specialist. Integrating that 3D model into your Shopify store will require a developer who understands the Shopify platform in and out. Therefore, to simplify this ordeal for yourself while keeping your business profitable. You can reach out to a reputed Shopify development company in India (or a similar low-cost nation). Just make sure they have relevant expertise and resources to build an engaging online store.
Punit