2021 Trends in Digital marketing, eCommerce, and Businesses
The world has turned into a Digital Globe, with the pandemic of Covid-19, disrupting the working models and ways of living, pushing us to do “everything from home” not just work. Internet turned into lifeline with online working, schooling, shopping and many more activities.
Change has been a constant source of growth, and we have been constantly adapting to the challenges thrown at us, we have found many ways to catch up with it. As the economy, population and environment responds to 2021, here are five key game-changing trends in digital marketing, ecommerce, and businesses, that I feel will shape the year to come.
Oh okay, now that I am vaccinated, do I still need to go back to office all five days a week. Perhaps not, if your company has gone wiser with real estate and employee flexibility😊.
Remote working turns into hybrid model of working and will be adopted rapidly for many years to come, perhaps permanently. The change in workplace evolution with the new normal is evident for every organization.
While many technology players like Amazon, Facebook, Salesforce and Google, are prepared for a “hybrid” model, which is effective need based model of working from home and office , there are others like Twitter and Spotify, who have declared to give employees complete flexibility to work from anywhere.
This hybrid model has turned popular as organizations save in real estate costs and employees enjoy flexibility of working from anywhere. Companies are concerned on safety, productivity, and efficiency of employees. Many workers may not wish to return to workplace, due to ongoing safety concerns or they prefer to a more flexible way of working. Cost benefit analysis also plays a key role in company’s decision around return to office, where in we see so many companies pushed away real estate and not feeling the need of calling all or any employees back, unless needed for business reasons and that too for limited days in a week.
eCommerce becomes best bet in the market. According to Statista, with global e-commerce sales expected to reach $6.54 trillion by 2022, its evident that e-commerce businesses will witness exceptional growth in coming years.
Quoting Digital Commerce 360, “US ecommerce grows 44.0% in 2020”. Moreover, online sales contributed to 21.3% of total retail sales for the year, while Amazon accounted for nearly a third of all ecommerce in the United States.
Yes! I am a lazy customer who wants to buy a pen and don’t really want to go online browsing for it. Is there a genie at my voice command? Well, there is Alexa and Siri to search for it and turn timers but very soon there will be one for your voice-based buying.
Voice takes the red carpet. As the hyper connected consumers turn lazy and now don’t even want to type out what they want on a google search bar or amazon website, they wish to have the comfort on just saying for things to happen. Its not just talking to voice assistant like Alexa or Siri for minor errands, they expect orders, payments and opinions to be run basis voice search.
ComScore mentions, over 50 percent of searches are from voice search. Podcasts have turned popular; we have Clubhouse~ an exclusive (invitation only) voice platform which was launched in April 2020 and has been game-changer in social media space drifting from typing to talking, it offers users to hosts virtual live discussions based on speaking and listening.
Artificial Intelligence turns a “friend in need” as data drives digital buying. To simplify user experience and queries, many players have taken on artificial intelligence. The ecommerce giant Amazon uses a flywheel approach to AI, to pitch relevant products to users. All extensions like chatbots, virtual assistants work on algorithms and provide key user behaviour insights data which can be fed back into the website to fuel engagement and drive digital buying.
“Oh, do I really need to go to amazon for buying.” Not anymore, you can do it here on Facebook itself with a command of a voice”.
Get ready for social commerce. Some social media platforms like Facebook have made efforts in personalisation to get closer to customer, enabling a smoother shift from discovery to buying stage without leaving the platform, creating a simple and seamless path to purchase. To be ready for retail brands to adapt to the new rules of social commerce, most of the social media players are advancing their shopping and check-out and payment capabilities, keeping security in mind.
Also read:Digital transformation: A required change and a new operating model in the BFSI industry
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Very interesting article 👍