Technology is having a massive effect on the shopping experience of the average consumer. It’s about more than just making the shopping experience easier for the consumer; it’s also about inventing totally new ways of shopping and revolutionizing e-commerce as we know it. Modern trends such as Simpay’s POS are only the beginning of techs weeps that will revolutionize E-commerce. In this article, we go over the new trends you need to look out for.
Augmented Reality
Contrary to public opinion, augmented reality (AR) isn’t new technology. It has, however, begun to expand recently and find applications in the e-commerce industry. Some of the earliest adopters of the technology were interior design sites, which used it to help their customers have a measure of interaction with their products before they made their purchasing decisions.
IKEA Place uses the ARKit from Apple to help consumers see the furniture as it would look in their homes using augmented reality. There are also other companies offering the same kind of service to their consumers. By 2020, this industry will be worth more than $100 billion and retailers who begin to experiment with it now will stand to benefit the most when it finally becomes mainstream. One possibility is the use of virtual reality goggles in the future to try on clothes virtually before buying them.
Shopping with Your Voice
Google Home and Alexa are often used for such things as finding out about the weather or changing the music. However, these pieces of technology can be used for more, like voice shopping. The activity is even becoming as popular as regular desktop browsing.
Amazon’s Echo is the leader in this sector with voice-activated speakers that integrate seamlessly with shopping on Amazon. Walmart is offering some serious competition to the e-commerce giant through a partnership with Google Assistant. Through the two, customers can access millions of products with their voice.
Blockchain Technology
Blockchain has become the answer to the question of trust in a world where consumers question practically everything. With blockchain, transparency is key and security is paramount. Blockchain technology has been used to track drones delivering products and make “smart packages” that record important details like the location of the product, environmental conditions and so on.
Blockchain also makes it possible to shop with cryptocurrencies. Such transactions are generally more transparent and remain in the cloud, making it possible to track records.
The Rise of Chatbots
Chatbots aren’t new, but they have seen a massive improvement in the past few years with better AI. Consumers expect faster responses to their emails, and this isn’t always possible for small retailers. However, a chatbot makes it much simpler, especially as they’ve become smarter and more intuitive.
New Checkout Technology
The most famous of these is one-click checkout. It was invented by Amazon and licensed to other large companies for a while before the patent expired and now all retailers can use it. One-click checkout makes cart abandonment much less likely and also improves the experience for customers making repeat purchases, resulting in more sales.
