Shopping experience B2C eCommerce: trends and developments

With the rise of big data, e-commerce companies increasingly have access to information from potential customers. For example, what is the purchasing behavior of the ideal website visitor? This extra insight creates great opportunities for the shopping experience at B2C eCommerce. It turns out that:

• 86% of shoppers are willing to pay more for a better shopping experience;
• 49% make impulse purchases with a personalized approach;
• 40% of the data analysis projects in 2020 relate to the shopping experience.

Trend 1: Personalization

With multiple well-personalized touchpoints, the customer can spend money and time as he or she prefers. An ideal method to generate customer loyalty! In a personalized shopping experience, retailers make the customer part of the dialogue. This makes one-to-one personalization possible: customers receive unique offers that are aimed at them as individuals, with the personal communication that goes with it.

Personalized interaction during the online purchase process leads to an increased customer satisfaction of no less than 20%! Certainly also due to the expected increase in sales conversion rates (10 to 15%) and the increased involvement of employees with the company (20 to 30%), this is a trend not to let go!

Trend 2: Augmented Reality (AR)

A digital shopping experience doesn't have to be any less fun! Take Charlie Temple, for example: they apply Augmented Reality (AR) by offering the online shopper a virtual fitting room in which they can fit glasses. This type of AR technology is increasingly used within the shopping experience of B2C e-commerce companies.

Research shows that 71% of customers indicate that they want to shop more often at web shops that use AR. In fact, 61% would rather make these purchases from an online retailer that does offer AR than from a website that does not.

Trend 3: Chatbots

In the intro, we mentioned that 86% of shoppers are willing to pay more for a better online shopping experience. According to a study by PwC, 43% are willing to do this for more convenience and 42% for a friendly, welcoming experience. Chatbots can support this in two phases of the shopping experience:

1. The awareness stage
   During the awareness, customers want to get questions answered quickly. Instead of digging through a long FAQ section, a bot can act as a friendly "search bar".
2. The evaluation stage
   In the evaluation phase, the personalization and quality of the shopping experience must be in order. When the customer can ask personal questions via a chatbot - because there is not always manpower or budget for contact with a live agent - this can greatly contribute to the welcoming experience.