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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved so much with time that it has become an integral part of various eCommerce businesses. After carefully considering numerous advancing trends, many online companies have begun to use different AI forms to understand their customers’ journeys, offer correct recommendations, and identify competitors’ strategies by enabling AI reliable analytics.

The cherry on the cake is the rising competition in the digitally native brands to incorporate the latest innovative changes. Many online companies are standing up to these market challenges; AI brings the best results in business operations. Implementing AI into business models helps companies accomplish tedious tasks efficiently and channel their efforts to more crucial tasks. The solutions, such as Alexa, Google’s home devices, chatbots, and many more, have already become a part of people’s daily lives. And online companies are looking for solutions that improve their customers’ entire shopping and engagement process while shopping online or selling anything to add a personal touch to the customer experience. ECommerce giants like Amazon and Walmart have already revolutionized their traditional practices to bring the best results to their businesses.

After understanding the significance of AI in digital commerce, we must explore its various benefits:

Increases in Targeted Marketing and Advertising

Personalization is the top priority for many companies. McKinsey surveys have revealed that only 15 per cent of businesses say that they have fully implemented personalization across various channels. These business owners of these companies will understand how having more personalized services can help them stand out from the crowd. They can have direct conversations with buyers, and incorporating advanced AI and machine learning into the system can enable firms to provide deep customization and personalization content and services to users.

The online marketplace is a massive sector, making it obvious why it has become a hot topic. The global eCommerce sales were approximately 3.5 trillion dollars in 2019, indicating that the novel business marketplace is increasingly becoming a profitable alternative for the enterprise.

The sales increased from 2014 to 2017 by an average of 25.6 per cent per year, and in the coming decades, it is anticipated to provide even more promising solutions and undergo a transformation that will change enterprises can’t even imagine.

In the current blog, we will look at some of the hottest trends for 2022 and understand major significant changes in eCommerce.

Let us have a look at them:

Augmented Reality Boots Online Shopping:

Augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a complete game-changer for eCommerce. The technology lets shoppers visualize the item they are shopping for, which further helps them make an informed decision when heading to the final payment gateway. It alters ones’ experience and has shown impressive results in specific industries, such as fashion and home décor. By using the new-age solution, these industries are able to provide a better feel for the item purchased without seeing it in person. Gartner had already predicted that the 100 million consumers would shop using AR technology by 2020, and the pandemic further drove this claim. According to the Gartner poll, 35 per cent of people have said that they would be more interested in shopping online only if they could get to try on a product virtually before heading for the final payment. 22 per cent of buyers have said they would be more interested in visiting a brick-mortar store only if AR was available in the stores.

The US consumers’ spending on eCommerce is expected to hit a record $1 trillion, all thanks to the pandemic-driven shift to online shopping this year, as per Adobe Analytics. The forecast anticipates jumps of 13 per cent from 2021, following total spending of $1.7 trillion over the period of two years of the COVID-19 crisis, starting March 2020.

Consequently, the retail sector has been enjoying some of its rosy results in the past couple of years. Walmart has already recorded the strongest first-quarter sales in its history, with its US sales rising 6 per cent year-over-year. This can be partly attributed to people standing stimulus checks but also was connected to the retailer’s eCommerce success. Walmart has reported online sales rose by 37 per cent YoY and more than doubled over the last two years. This indicates that retailers must step up to the challenge and not just support online sales but also embrace emerging technologies to create connections with customers and make their journey more convenient.

Let us look at the various new trends in eCommerce that helps digitally native to thrive in the ever-evolving landscape:

The Rise of Other Trending Product Categories

Ecommerce during the initial outbreak of the pandemic thrived because people had no other choice barring online shopping. The stores were closed, and shoppers’ fear of contracting the pandemic accelerated the use of virtual platforms, and this phenomenon continued into 2021 until vaccines became widely available. Additionally, consumer demands for goods surged, with consumers spending their stimulus checks and reallocating their expenditure on travelling and other leisure activities, such as restaurants, home repairs, furnishings, and many other items. This led to a massive shift in the products people shop for and altered consumer behavior, and finances caused massive shifts in digital commerce by category.

According to Adobe, online grocery sales increased 103 per cent year-over-year in 2020, where US consumers spent around $73.7 billion online. Shoppers kept up that pace in 2021 and spent $79.2 billion on online groceries, up by 7.2 per cent compared with 2020. Consumers prefer to spend an average of $6.7 billion online each month for groceries, increasing from $3.1 billion pre-pandemic. According to the reports by Adobe, this category was purchased to remain at the top with a whopping $85 billion in 2022.

Businesses, irrespective of their nature, viz., digitally native, omnichannel, or offline, have evolved tremendously over the last few years. The blurring of online and offline boundaries has significantly impacted businesses. These days, they are more driven by the shift in customer choices and purchasing preferences, hybrid business models.

The rising of new business models has shown to the world that innovative tech solutions need to offer agility, flexibility, and creative control to develop new solutions without limitations. Headless commerce is one of the best ways to meet all the requirements, enabling companies to meet their customers' expectations efficiently. Its core idea is to ensure the smooth functioning of businesses while empowering them to mark their robust digital presence. It helps businesses connect their customers across various touchpoints, and devices provide a seamless operational process and growth expansion for firms. Companies adopting this approach can better engage with their customers and offer them personalized experiences. It also helps them pave the way for customer loyalty and greater conversions; hence, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that headless commerce has emerged as a game-changer and offer them benefits at every level.

What is headless Commerce, and Why is it of Paramount Importance for Business Expansion?

The concept of headless commerce is to decouple the backend from the frontend and allow businesses to add new touchpoints, functionalities, features, etc. while using the same backend logic. Hence, it naturally becomes the ideal solution to allow businesses to evolve. It empowers companies to curate interactive and immersive experiences with the help of API to implement modifications in the core. Therefore, this new approach brings a plethora of benefits to businesses.

Let us look at the various advantages it offers to companies:

1. Provides Omnichannel Approach

It offers creative control to businesses to develop agile and nimble solutions as the frontend, backend, and APIs work in tandem to ensure diverse and innovative eCommerce solutions. It enables companies to smoothly adopt omnichannel routes and offer seamless customer journeys across various touchpoints. With an omnichannel strategy through headless commerce, enterprises have better visibility across channels and customer engagement.

The massive disruptions caused by the pandemic have been historic for the unprecedented effects it has had on supply chains worldwide. Much like society has adapted with facemasks and social distancing, a “new normal” has also emerged in logistics networks, transforming with the many curveballs COVID-19 threw at it. Like most radical changes, the term may sound scary, but this redefined supply chain model represents a far more flexible—and hopefully better—future for the industry.

What Exactly IS the “New Normal?”

Dealing with high intensity and demanding situations on a frequent basis is pretty normal for anyone who works in a supply chain. However, it shows how damaging the pandemic was when even seasoned leaders in the industry were left scrambling to get their operations back on track as soon as possible.

Both old and new methods were needed to inject life back into production lines and are what largely make up this “new normal” for supply chains. While they may not all stick past the aftermath of the pandemic, here are a few ways leaders have managed to keep afloat over the last two years:

Outsourcing and Dual Sourcing Outsourcing has certainly existed in the supply chain world well before the pandemic, but with the unpredictable nature of the world as of late, many companies are reconsidering their stances. With so much on their plate, it is often easier for smaller companies to outsource aspects of their supply chains—often referred to as Supply Chains as a Service—as a way to leave some of their workloads to industry professionals.

Dual sourcing has also proved to be a genius move to counter future uncertainties. Many companies have stuck with one single supplier for materials and components, which meant that many supply chains stopped dead in the water when disruptions hit in 2020. Establishing backup plans through having multiple suppliers can ensure that a single link cannot break your production chain.

Automation

One of the biggest hits businesses took from the pandemic was the sudden lack of employees working in person. With lockdowns and later social distancing introduced to help curb COVID-19, many production lines that required human interaction were left clueless at what to do.