November 20, 2020 Hottest Trends in E-commerce and Consumer Brands

A breakdown of a few of the hottest trends in the market now.

Each year presents new technologies, methodologies, and trends in the e-commerce world and despite the wild turbulence, 2020 was no different. We still have some time left in this strange year, but already we’ve seen recognizable trend lines in both e-commerce and the consumer brand ecosystem.

The following is a breakdown of a few of the hottest trends in the market now:

Amazon FBA businesses

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) has been a growing trend for the last year. This is a way for businesses, especially e-commerce businesses, to sell to and reach their customers using Amazon’s vast infrastructure and resources. This includes 300 million active customers, 90 million Prime subscribers, and 100 warehouses spread across the country.

Amazon is one of the biggest corporations in the world. By agreeing to use and sell Amazon FBA services, you get to leverage their massive commerce platform and provide superior customer service.

The process is relatively simple, too. You send your products to an Amazon warehouse, where they sort and safely store (even insure them against damage) your products in their inventory. Once a customer buys your product, Amazon packages and mails it, and even handles all the customer service.

You have to use Amazon branding on the packaging, you cut major costs by not having to print, store, and ship products. For most small businesses and startups with limited funds, this is a goldmine.

Social media shopping

Social media shopping is not only an e-commerce trend, it taps into the simultaneous trends of social commerce and online shopping, which have both grown massively in 2018 and 2019. In 2016, social media shopping drove $327 billion in consumer shopping and that number has been rising steadily in the years since.

Social media shopping requires a sophisticated visual advertising plan that involves sustaining real relationships with people on social platforms. If you can successfully do that, you stand to significantly increase your profits. In the same way that the Internet and online sales took the torch from traditional commerce, social media is in the process of taking the torch from regular Internet channels.

It’s not enough to have a website anymore – you have to be active and authentic in multiple social media communities.

Customization

Customization has been trending for years now and in many different industries. Customization works in two different ways. One, it makes customers feel better about doing business with you because you have connected with some of their core needs and wants.

And two, in the process of achieving this customization, you will have acquired lucrative customer and consumer data sets that can help you better target your sales in the future.

While you don’t want customers to feel like you’re stalking them online, micro-targeted ads and personalized templates have been shown to achieve better results when executed correctly. Micro-targeted ads by Google and Facebook have begun to raise some ethical questions in recent years, but the truth remains that customized advertising works. The key is finding a balance in your execution of such ads.

Security

Security innovation is a predictable trend because in today’s digital-tech-encryption world, security is one of the most important assets of a company. If your companies don’t trust your security, you might as well pack up your bags and shutter your doors.

In 2020, security became a trend in the area of payment gateways like Stripe and Opayo. Integrating such platforms and others into your customers’ checkout experience could be the difference between a glitch or hack that costs you thousands of dollars and a happy customer base.

You should also prioritize and honor consumer privacy regulations like CCPA, GDPR, and others. Consumer safety and customer security should always be at the forefront of business considerations.

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