2019, What's Good? 3 Big Trends

When discussing trends, it's easy to fall into the trap of ignoring ongoing trends and focusing only on new ones, but this can be a major mistake. The real trends are those that have been around longer. They are what you should be following in 2019. That's why, over the past few weeks, we've reviewed multiple expert interviews, opinions, and past and current forecasts to identify 3 key trends shaping e-commerce and continuing to have a profound impact on businesses in the digital space. Here's what you should focus on in 2019 for convenience, according to our research: Customer experience will be a key brand differentiator. Social selling will help savvy companies drive bigger sales. AI and chatbots will become the norm. Companies that embrace these trends and place them at the forefront of their corporate agenda have managed to distance themselves from their competitors.

Trend #1: Customer Experience "If you think you've heard this before, stop me..." Customer experience is featured again and again in nearly every trend forecast roundup, and that hasn't changed in 2019. What has changed is that businesses have realized that delivering epic customer experiences is no longer a “nice to have” or a buzzword, but the standard industry mailing list to remain competitive in 2019. To deliver the experience customers expect, two things are required: 1) Personalization If you want to effectively personalize experiences in 2019, you need more than just capturing implicit data like demographics or browsing behavior. You have to combine it with the voice of the customer , which is clear data in the form of customer expectations, preferences and dislikes. Only then will you have the opportunity to truly understand what your customers want and provide them with the contextual content and products they want to see. Understanding context will be key in 2019.

How is this explicit data collected, you ask? This leads us to the second command: 2) Participate Create direct conversations with your customers. Learn about them one by one. ask questions. To create a personalized experience, you need to ask questions and engage with customers in the right way, at the right time. In this way, you will gain important insights into their opinions, needs, preferences, situations and needs. In the end, clients are people who seek personal relationships and engagement. They want to feel valued, heard and understood - even when interacting on digital channels. In 2019, it's all about breaking down the thick walls that the digital world has built between businesses and customers. 2019 will be the pinnacle of the participation economy, which essentially aims to humanize the digital experience. Ask questions to engage your customers (engagement), listen to them through every channel to understand their preferences and desires (learning) and create experiences based on that understanding (action) . Do you want to better understand your customers' needs to provide a more engaging, intuitive and informative shopping experience?