8 Ecommerce Trends To Look Out For In 2024

Retail eCommerce sales are estimated to go beyond $6.3 trillion in 2024.

To get a piece of that pie, explore the latest eCommerce trends in this article and see how you can use them to give a better customer experience. Plus, we will dive into the best practices to help you find the personalized trends for your eCommerce brand.

After reading this, you can jump into action and tweak your strategy to keep those dollars rolling in.

8 Game-Changing eCommerce Trends for 2024

As you learn about recent trends in ecommerce, highlight the ones that resonate most with your online store. Then, discuss them with your team to select 1 or 2 you can implement first.

1. Redefine Customer Experience With Advanced AI-Powered Chatbots

Chatbots result in an 80% consumer satisfaction rate, and by 2024, transactions through them can exceed $112 billion.

But you are probably thinking, "Is an artificial intelligence chatbot a new eCommerce trend?" 

It is not. However, times are changing and a more advanced version that can offer better personalized shopping experiences is needed.

Highly developed AI-powered chatbots go beyond answering basic product FAQs. They make smart product recommendations and engage with customers with quizzes to learn more about them. They also use machine learning to understand how a customer shops and tailor the experience accordingly.

Why are these features important?

They improve conversational commerce to make shopping interactive and engaging. Plus, with real-time, personalized assistance, the customer journey becomes more seamless. You can use this to keep customers on your site longer to:

• Drive more sales
• Improve the chances of conversion
• Get repeat visits to your eCommerce store

How Do You Apply This

Use Manifest AI’s chatbot’s technology. It understands what customers are looking for and then, it creates personalized quizzes asking about other details like budget and main concerns. This lets the chatbot give more specific and relevant product suggestions.

Manifest AI is an AI shopping assistant that helps visitors with the right product recommendations tailored to their needs. The AI shopping assistant can understand visitor queries by asking them the right questions, aiding in their overall purchase journey. It runs on the latest GPT-4o and provides a highly personalized shopping experience.

It includes:

AI-Powered Support: Offers instant, real-time responses to customer queries, ensuring a smooth shopping experience.

AI Shopping Pages: Provides a ChatGPT-like shopping experience, enabling customers to ask for what they want and guiding them to the right products.

Quizzes: Engages customers with interactive quizzes to find the best products for their needs, gathering valuable preference data.

AI Search & Recommendation: Helps customers find what they’re looking for and recommends products based on browsing behavior.

AI Nudges: Encourages customers to complete purchases with strategic reminders about popular items, offers, and cart contents.

2. Implement Subscription-Based Models To Drive Revenue

The subscription eCommerce market is set to grow to around $330 billion by 2024.

Let your customers subscribe and choose to pay weekly, monthly, or yearly for your ongoing products or services. Think of Netflix, Blue Apron, and Birchbox.

With subscription models, you meet the growing customer expectations for convenience and personalization. Plus, you can use ongoing engagement to build long-term relationships and customer loyalty. 

How Do You Apply This

From your eCommerce website, look for products your customers buy regularly, like skincare items, snacks, or office supplies. Conduct customer surveys to know which products they buy regularly or would buy repeatedly from your eCommerce site.

Also, analyze your current data like your sales by product to know your most frequently bought items. If you are on Shopify, click “Analytics” and then “Reports” to access your sales data.

Then, search for your competitors and see if they are offering subscription services. If they are, look at what items they include in their subscriptions.

Once you select your products, set up the subscription option in your shop. Shopify lets you use third-party subscription apps to make this available for your shop. Though it comes with eligibility requirements and other guidelines before you can use it. 

When that is up and running on your eCommerce site, start to lure your customers. Explain your subscription benefits and highlight the convenience and potential savings. You can also offer incentives like special offers or early access to new products. 

When subscriptions start pouring in, make sure to communicate with your subscribers regularly. Send welcome emails to new subscribers explaining what to expect and inform them about upcoming deliveries.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you choose to offer organic coffee beans. Add a subscription option on your product page and highlight benefits like:

• An exclusive 10% discount.
• A free sample of a new blend each month.
• Freshly roasted beans of their choice delivered monthly.

Then, set up email reminders for upcoming deliveries and new product launches. You can even add trivia about the products in your subscription offers. 

To do all this, hire a business development manager who brings in the experience needed to find new opportunities, do market research, and develop your subscription service strategy. This way, you can get more free time for other critical tasks, like creating marketing campaigns and expanding your brand presence. Alternatively, you can opt for an eCommerce consulting firm that specializes in identifying growth strategies and optimizing your operations for enhanced customer engagement

3. Provide Immersive Shopping Experiences Through Augmented Reality (AR)

About 1.73 billion people will likely use AR on their phones in 2024.

Let your audience see how your products look and fit in their space before they buy to make their shopping experience more interactive. With this, you can increase customer satisfaction and engagement. 

Also, you can use this trend to encourage your audience to shop online more often and reduce returns and refunds. Here’s more reason to do AR for your business:

How Do You Apply This

Choose your AR platform–Shopify AR or Augment. You can contact each platform, list down the pros and cons, or take advantage of their free trials.

After choosing a platform, make sure your product images are high-quality so that when they're transformed into 3D scans, they look clear and detailed. Then, test the AR experience on different devices to make sure they are compatible. You do not want your product to look clear on a phone but appear distorted or the wrong size on a tablet or desktop.

Plus, this eCommerce trend is a huge win if you are:

• Fashion: Let customers mimic the physical retail experiences with virtual try-ons.
• Cosmetics: Offer virtual makeup try-ons like how a lipstick shade looks on them.
• Residential Design: Let your users visualize what your indoor furniture and outdoor structures look like in their actual homes.

With AR, your eCommerce store can give a personalized shopping experience to rival any brick-and-mortar store.

4. Cut Down Waste With Eco-Friendly Packaging

82% of customers are willing to pay more for sustainable packaging. So, it is safe to say that you likely have an audience who care about the environment and want to do their part.

How does green packaging play a part?

Eco-friendly packaging lets you hit many birds with 1 stone, like minimizing your brand’s environmental impact and improving your brand image. 

Apply this to align with your audience’s changing shopping habits while showing your environmental commitment. Use this also to attract prospective customers and retain existing ones who value green practices to increase your eCommerce sales.

How Do You Apply This

Research suppliers who offer eco-friendly packaging materials like Good Start Packaging if you have food products and EcoEnclose for other items. You should look for options like:

• Recyclable
• Biodegradable
• Reusable packaging

Next, review your current packaging to spot areas that can be replaced with sustainable options. For example, if you are using plastic bubble wrap now, switch to biodegradable packing peanuts.

Also, product packaging does not only cover the big brown box. You can include other elements that reflect your brand while still having eco-friendly packaging. 

For instance, put recyclable metal stickers showing your brand logo on the box or add custom-designed inserts printed on recycled paper that tell your brand’s story. To go one step further, highlight these changes in our packaging to encourage customers to recycle or reuse them.

5. Create Urgency With Virtual Pop-Up Stores 

Tap into emerging technologies like virtual reality to create a unique shopping experience with virtual pop-up stores. You should use these to mimic the thrill of in-store events and create urgency and excitement. 

How Do You Apply This

Choose a theme and showcase your most popular products or new collections to excite your customers. For example, if you have a fashion brand, create a virtual pop-up store for your latest spring collection. Design the store with fresh, spring elements and let your customers "walk" through and buy items directly.

To build your virtual pop-up store, use Obsess. Here’s how your pop-up store can look like:

Add countdown timers or time-limited discounts to create urgency and encourage quick purchases. You can also offer exclusive deals or limited-edition products to attract shoppers. 

Additionally, talk with your audience during the event through live chats or virtual tours. You can answer their queries to help them with their purchasing decisions.

6. Increase Conversions Through Multiple Payment Options 

Did you know 85% of customers say they would cancel a purchase if their preferred payment method is not available?

Customers expect flexibility when shopping online and one way to give them that is to offer multiple payment options. Use this trend to reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion rates. 

Plus, a more convenient checkout process encourages repeat purchases that let you build customer loyalty. 

How Do You Apply This

Besides the usual debit and credit cards, include digital wallets like Apple Pay. These payment solutions make it easier for your customers to buy from your store using their mobile devices.

To set your options up, use Stripe to create your payment gateways and manage your various methods.

Additionally, Stripe encrypts customer data to protect it against fraud so you can make sure you stay credible in your customers’ eyes. 

You should also allow payments through Shop and Afterpay so your customers can pay in installments. Use this tactic to make your high-ticket items more affordable and attract more buyers. Also, if you are doing social commerce, make sure you accept Meta Pay since this covers Instagram and Facebook already.

A great example of this is Mannequin Mall. They offer 11 payment options, including digital wallets like Google Pay, Venmo, and Apple Pay. 

It also lets clients spread out their interest-free payments for up to 12 months. The payment flexibility lets the company cater to different customer preferences and get more sales.

7. Provide Deeper Product Insights With Demo Portals 

Ever visit a website and only see a brief product overview or, worse, no previews at all? Frustrating, right? Enter demo portals—69% of consumers agree that product demos are the most helpful for making purchase choices.

You can use them to give your customers a much more detailed look at your products. Let them see the benefits or how easy it is to use your products to encourage them to make an online purchase.

How Do You Apply This

Identify products you have that need detailed explanations, like a multi-functional kitchen gadget with various settings and features or complex software. Then, create high-quality demo videos for these products with clear, simple language to explain the features.

In addition, make the videos short but informative to not bore the customers. You should also highlight key benefits and how the product solves customer problems. 

A great example of how to do demo videos right is AlisQI. The company has a dedicated video web page with dozens of action-oriented short clips (less than 2 minutes each). They highlight the product's benefits and show you exactly how to find and use those features.

You can also post user-generated content (UGC) for authentic reviews and demos. But make sure your UGC is clear and high-quality.

Next, integrate these demo videos into your product pages. Make sure your videos are easily accessible and work across multiple channels. You can also use the demo videos to promote your products on social media and email campaigns.

With demo portals, you provide a richer online shopping experience on your eCommerce site and help customers with informed shopping decisions.

8. Create An Exciting Online Shopping Experience With Gamification

More eCommerce businesses are jumping on this trend, just like over 70% of the Global 2000 companies. You can adopt this trend to make the customer experience fun and stand out in a crowded market.

Additionally, use games to create a sense of achievement and build a community among your online shoppers. You can also use this gamified approach to encourage site visitors to spend more time on your store and interact with your products.

How Do You Apply This

Identify elements that can be gamified and create challenges or quests for your customers to complete. For example, offer points for each purchase, newsletter sign-up, or product review. Then, customers can redeem these points for discounts or special items.

You can also use badges and leaderboards to recognize top customers. But make sure these features work smoothly on both desktop and mobile shopping.

To do all that, go to Comarch to build your games. It offers many game types like leaderboards, lotteries, badges, tiered challenges, and progress bars. You can also get an attractive rewards page where customers can track their progress and graphics and animations to make it visually appealing.

When it is all up and running, monitor customer feedback and adjust your game elements to keep them fresh and exciting. Also, keep on promoting this to encourage your customers to participate and highlight the rewards they can get.

3 Best Practices When Choosing The Right Trends For Your Brand

eCommerce sites vary, but these 3 best practices let you leverage the right trend for your brand. Focus on key details and adapt them to your site for better results.

A. Align With Your Brand Goals

With this, you can make sure that any new trend you apply enhances your brand’s identity. Use this best practice to keep your efforts focused on what truly matters to your business. 

How do you do this?

Define your brand goals. Is it sustainability, innovation, or customer loyalty?

For instance, if customer loyalty is your focus, look into gamifying your loyalty rewards program to attract customers. But if sustainability is your goal, consider eco-friendly packaging as one of the biggest eCommerce trends to adopt. 

Use a SWOT analysis to weigh the benefits and drawbacks. Here’s an example if your goal is sustainability-focused:

You should assess these factors to decide whether the trend aligns with your brand goals. So go for eco-friendly packaging if the strengths and opportunities outweigh the weaknesses and threats. If not, find other eco-initiatives that align better with your resources.

B. Monitor Your Competitors

Watch your competitors to see what works and what does not in your market. Then, use the insight to guide you in adopting shopping trends that increase your online sales.

To do this, use Google Search, industry or local directories, and social media to identify your competitors. Then, create a list of the top 5-10 competitors in your niche. Make sure to check out your local, regional, and international competitors, depending on your market reach.

Look at their eCommerce stores and note any new trends they are using. Do they have a new subscription service or a better chatbot? Pay attention to changes in their product offers, website design, and marketing strategies.

In addition, you can use Social Sprout to monitor the sentiment around your competitors and identify which trends are receiving positive or negative feedback on social media channels.

For instance, if you see that their subscription service is getting great feedback, consider adopting a similar model. But if you notice their AR shopping feature is receiving negative comments, you can either: rethink that trend or see what their users do not like about it to improve how you implement AR.

C. Evaluate Resource Availability

Doing this helps you guarantee you have the tools and capacity to implement a new trend effectively. It prevents overextension and guides you to plan better.

How to do this?

Assess your current resources. List your financial, human, and even technological resources. Find out if you need new software, additional budget, or more staff when you apply a new trend to your brand. 

For instance, let’s say you want to implement custom shopping experiences like virtual try-ons. Check if you have the right technology and team to handle it. If not, check if you can hire a specialist or have the budget to invest in new software.

Next, create a detailed plan and outline what resources are required at each step. You should also allocate a budget for necessary tools and training. Make sure you have a timeline in place.

With this best practice, you can choose the online retail trends that fit your brand’s capabilities. But make sure to adjust your plan as needed and accommodate any changes.

Conclusion

Embrace these eCommerce industry trends to transform your brand. To jumpstart the process, evaluate which ones possibly align with your current or future goals. Then, consider how they impact customer behavior. Will it get them to engage more or finish the sales process?

Take small steps and research deeply before fully committing. Track the results and adjust as needed. Remember, the goal is to enhance the experience and build loyal customers. Think about the long-term benefits and how these trends can set you apart.

If you want to act now, leverage Manifest AI. Engage your audience throughout their customer journey with an advanced AI shopping assistant.