Forecast for E-Commerce for 2013

2012 was a difficult year for retailers: many stores were forced to close their doors after unsuccessful attempts to raise sales. But in turn, online stores have shown good growth. The IMRG Association expects a 12% increase in sales over the Christmas holidays, which will increase the size of the UK online shopping market to the expected 77 billion pounds sterling in 2012.

Over the past 12 months, the online business has made a qualitative leap from a simple service that provides online transactions to full-fledged virtual stores, successfully creating a brand for the product. More and more buyers prefer to shop in online stores from their mobile devices. With such a variety of opportunities, just one click away from the customer, increasing customer loyalty and instilling the user's online shopping habits will be the main areas of work for online business in 2013.

In this article, I cited 6 key trends that will accompany and support the growth of e-commerce in the coming year:

1. Individual approach to customer loyalty

Some retail principles have not changed for many years. The secret of success is still the following: to attract customers in such a way that they would like to return to your brand again and again and advertise it to their friends. Social networks allowed the retail business to not only communicate directly with their fans, but also to reach their friends. However, when it comes to the dependence of ROI on loyalty in 2013, customer attachment will become just a buzzword, not a real number of fans. Ultimately, the point is not the number of these fans, but the quality, i.e. how much they are loyal.
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2. Social Shopping

Consultation with someone before making a purchase, has long been normal for us. However, now you can not just take your friend with you for shopping, but the entire social network. Services like Pinterest and The Fancy are gaining popularity in the role of social media, giving users the ability to sort everything they love into subject collections and share these collections with friends. This is not only a way to express yourself in shopping, but also a way to share your preferences with other customers. The business should take note of this, which is why we expect to see these collections as the main trend of 2013.

3. Change payment methods

And without that a huge selection of payment options for purchases, which sellers currently offer buyers, most likely, will only grow, exerting an increasing influence on the decision to purchase. Along with the growth of mobile transactions, such methods as NFC and contactless payment can drastically change the usual process of paying for purchases. PayPal and iTunes services began to bind payments to mobile devices quite a long time ago, and services such as Square that offer merchants the ability to accept payments from credit cards, using only a smartphone and a simple attachable reader device, are next in line. This freedom of accepting payments for purchases online or directly in the store will be invaluable in the coming year for companies of all sizes.

4. Return to specialty stores

Whether selling “face to face” or via the Internet, in recent years there has been a steady tendency for buyers to return to specialty stores, which, unlike mass retail chains, can often offer their customers a more competent service and personal approach to the needs of each client. These stores include those engaged only in goods of a certain sphere, be it fashion, jewelry or photographic equipment.

5. More videos

One of the reasons why video has not been used throughout e-commerce for a long time was the slowness of the Internet connection, which is why the process of downloading websites from video would be too long, which, by the way, still remains for many a problem. However, with an increase in the average speed of Internet access throughout the world, this restriction will cease to be so critical, and online stores will finally be able to freely use more rich multimedia content. I look forward to the appearance of video reviews and videos with a demonstration of unpacking products sold, which will become more common in 2013.

6. Increased integration with mobile devices

Whether it is a website optimized for mobile platform browsers or mobile applications, most retailers agree on the need to create a solution that supports smartphones or tablets. However, mobile technology can offer much more than that. Next year we expect closer integration of stores into mobile devices through applications and the use of QR codes, along with the latest payment methods, starting with NFC and ending with the Passbook service.

In any retail business, customer is crucial to success, and mobile and social applications will only help retailers to work more closely with the consumer. In the coming year, the key to customer loyalty and successful brand building will be the creation of a multi-channel retail environment in the form of a solid platform.

As an industry as a whole, we need to increase the comfort of shopping, as well as attract new customers using more targeted advertising campaigns and special offers, thereby continuing to build consumer confidence in their brand and mobile devices in the new role of a payment instrument. In addition to this, the industry needs to actively use social networks, thereby bringing purchase recommendations to a new level and turning social shopping into real entertainment.

Agree with the presented trends? Got something to add?