Important E-Commerce Logistics Trends to Watch in 2019

Changing E-Commerce Landscape

The e-commerce landscape is changing and presenting online retailers with new and innovative ways of trading online.

Because global e-commerce retail sales are expected to exceed 6 trillion dollars by 2021 (Forbes reports that B2B e-commerce will grow to become a $6.7 trillion market by 2020) every business wants to be a leader in their own niches.

Online stores have played a great role in developing the entire industry.

As more and more entrepreneurs find their place on online store platforms, those platforms have developed new tools to make life easier for e-commerce store owners.

This proposes the question of what will be a trend in this industry in the very near future.

Mobile-Friendly Technology

Mobile-friendly approach to building online stores has been an imperative for some time now.

People largely use their phones for shopping and it’s a more convenient experience if done right.

Google also rewards mobile-friendly sites by placing them higher on their lists.

However, while some e-commerce sites have perfectly responsive and mobile friendly sites, some are still firmly holding on to what they know.

But the rules have changed one more time this year when Google had an update of the algorithm.

One of the main points of this update is to add a ‘mobile first’ factor as one of the determinants of search results.

Of course, this will become something that everyone has to deal with at some point while for now, it’s just for the large sites.

This change means that everyone will have to have a mobile friendly site if they want to stay on top.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have been something interesting to users for years.

But, the e-commerce stores are using it for their own benefit and advancement now.

They use these technologies to introduce their customers to their new products or buildings.

AR is technology that superimposes an image on a user’s view of the world to create a single image.

VR is a computer-generated simulation of a 3D image or an environment to immerse the users into a completely new and different world.

Automation

Automation is a powerful thing across many industries and e-commerce is no different.

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The very shopping experience has a lot to gain from automation.

It refers to the creation and implementation of technology to streamline and cut the number of processes.

“Online e-commerce stores are not that well-staffed so automation can help people get a better experience”, says Chris Jaroe, a tech writer from OriginWritings and 1day2write.

Read: 7 Problems Every E-Commerce Company Faces

Chatbots

Chatbots are all over the web at the moment and they don’t plan on slowing down.

This technology is a computer program designed to communicate with people.

Almost every website you stumble upon these days will have a Chatbot.

This (chatbot) technology can serve as basic customer support, personalized sales and so on.

They are helping by streamlining the customer’s journey.

Delivery Options

It’s getting easier and easier for brands to send their products to various places on earth.

Amazon is testing drones for package delivery in England, there are postal lockers popping up in Australia and so on.

Shipping will definitely change in the upcoming years.

Easy Check-Out

This is no longer an option for brands - cart abandonment is a real issue and one of the main reasons people give up on those sales is because the process of the checkout isn’t simple or fast enough.

“If you want to stay on top of this trend, maybe it would be a good idea to consider allowing users to sign in as guests or have a one-page short form or autofill fields”, says Julia Goodwin, a tech blogger at Writemyx and Academicbrits.

Payment Options

We have numerous payment options at the moment.

Cryptocurrency, digital wallets, instant layby are some of our options.

There are plenty of websites enabling more and more methods of payment.

This mean of paying will certainly overtake the cash at some point in the future but the various payment options in e-commerce will continue to grow through the next year.

Look Out For These Trends In 2019

These have been some of the trends that will continue on into the future when it comes to e-commerce.

Make sure that you are following them because if not, you might end up somewhere far away from where you want to be.

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