Thinking about launching your e-commerce brand in 2024? Here are the top 4 e-commerce trends in 2024 that you need to know about to get your products flying off the (digital) shelves!
Thought QVC was dead? Think again.
The TikTok economy, social commerce and teleshopping is the new (and very popular) kid on the block
If you’re a consumer-focussed e-commerce brand, TikTok may well be one of the most powerful tools for expanding your reach and driving sales. The app’s unique discovery algorithm analyses thousands of signals to determine what kind of content users want to see. This is great for small businesses whose content will be pushed out to potential buyers ripe for conversion.
Even bedroom-startups such as Dasha Derkach’s scrunchie brand Enchanted Scrunch have encountered phenomenal success via the virality of organic content on the platform – going from 2 orders per week to 500 orders per week.
A powerful catalyst for the beauty category
TikTok has proved itself to be a particularly powerful catalyst for the beauty category, and lends itself well to influencers wanting to create viral GRWMs (get-ready-with-mes) and makeup tutorials. The disruptive beauty brand Made by Mitchell, for example, has had a major boost from the platform, with their viral “Blursh” liquid blush alone having made some 629.8k sales.
From brick-and mortar to TikTok star
Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, such as Candy Funhouse, have also had a success in transitioning to the platform, with the brand’s first viral video gaining them 30k followers.
“The key to turning TikTok into a business”, founder Jamal Hejazi says, “is to create an environment that is based around the content and experience, rather than a product. TikTok is a great platform for building a brand if you can capture the spirit of TikTok and steer away from the traditional forms of advertisement.”
Say hello again to teleshopping
And just when you thought teleshopping was dead, TikTok revived it! Estimated to reach $55 billion by 2026, live online shopping is one of the most promising e-commerce trends. However, QVC-style shopping has been given a facelift by TikTok, whose innovation was to allow consumers to shop directly from a shoppable in-feed video and to engage in one-click shopping.
Great web traffic, but low conversions?
More and more businesses are investing in conversion rate optimisation (CRO)
In a busy digital world with overstimulated consumers, capturing attention and converting visitors into leads is challenging. That’s where conversion rate optimisation (CRO) comes in. It’s the process of fine-tuning your website to maximise the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, like signing up for a newsletter, mailing list or making a purchase.
Learn from the best about landing page optimisation
Key drivers of web lead conversion include clear brand-aligned copy, strategic visuals and calls-to-action on your landing page, and mobile optimisation.
Some examples of effective landing pages include Headspace, whose clear, to-the-point product offering and pricing plans are prominently displayed, or Mogul whose whimsical but pared-back landing page appeals to a techy audience.
77% of companies already use website A/B testing
A/B testing lets you easily compare two versions of a page to see which one performs better and is widely used by companies across their marketing collateral. According to TrueList, 77% of organisations do A/B testing on their website and 60% do it on their landing page, while some 93% of US companies do A/B testing on their email marketing campaigns.
More landing pages, more leads?
Websites with over 30 landing pages yield seven times more leads than those with less than 10, according to Hostinger. Landing pages convert by being simple and distraction-free, directing visitors to your key offerings – whether that’s educational products, clothing and shoes, or sweets.
Cart abandonment driving you nuts?
Customers want hassle-free deliveries, returns, payments and customer support
With Amazon setting a high bar for swift same-day deliveries, customers crave a frictionless buying journey from placing an order to receiving it and everything in between.
Fast free shipping and live chat support are key for a seamless shopping experience
Research suggests that 62% of online shoppers expect free shipping orders to arrive within three business days, while 81% of customers also say that a positive support experience encourages repeat purchases.
As part of this positive support experience, consumers generally prefer live chat: 41% of customers choose live chat over phone, email, and social media support because it offers real-time help with minimal effort.
Integrate BNPL for reduced cart abandonment
BNPL (Buy-Now-Pay-Later) options at checkout have also been shown to increase retail sales and reduce cart abandonment rate by 35%, allowing customers to pay for products in interest-free installments. Popular options include Klarna, Afterpay, and PayPal Pay in 4.
As of 2024, half of UK adults (or 26.4 million people) have used BNPL services at some point – up from 36% at the start of 2023.
Working smarter, not harder…
SMEs are increasingly adopting marketing automation
Driven by the desire for streamlined workflows and maximised ROI, the marketing automation market is expected to reach a staggering $9.5 billion by 2027, reflecting a growth rate of 12.8%.
A competitive market is driving SMEs to invest in marketing automation
The increasing affordability and accessibility of marketing automation tools are expected to fuel even wider adoption within the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) market. Leading tech players like Adobe, Salesforce, Microsoft, Hootsuite and HubSpot are contributing to this trend by offering solutions tailored to the needs and budgets of smaller businesses.
And automation does not mean “impersonalisation”: these tools gather and analyse customer data on a vast scale, creating personalised follow-up messages and emails for every step of the buyer journey.
Popular e-commerce tools include automated pricing and bid adjustment
Automated pricing software enables businesses to set prices that achieve their revenue goals while remaining competitive in a saturated market. These applications use web scrapers to scrape competitors’ websites to see the price they’re charging for a similar product, keeping a pulse on the pricing landscape, while removing the hard graft involved in desktop research.
Automated bid adjustment, or automated PPC software, are also increasingly being used by small businesses to improve the performance of their ads.
For example, Google Ads’ automated bidding solutions like Target CPA and Target ROAS use machine learning to analyse data and automatically adjust bids to help achieve desired cost-per-acquisition or return on ad spend goals. And tools like Acquisio and Kenshoo offer automated bid and budget management capabilities, employing algorithms to monitor and adjust bids across campaigns, ad groups, and keywords.
